The Pentagon is placing big bets that the eventual reconciliation bill will provide large portions of the fiscal year 2026 funding for some major weapons programs such as the Golden Dome project and B-21 bomber, according to a document obtained by Defense Daily, as Senate appropriators have cautioned against leaning too heavily on the one-time spending measure.
During a Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle pressed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on the lack of details regarding the Pentagon’s FY ’26 spending plans and the delay in receiving a full budget submission.
“[Spending] bills are already being written and the department’s inability to explain its budget is slowly making it less relevant to what it receives in fiscal year ‘26 and our appropriations process,” SAC-D Ranking Member Chris Coons (D-Del.) said, adding DoD has “been AWOL” in the FY ‘26 budget debate.
The White House in May rolled out a “skinny” budget outline for FY ‘26, touting an “unprecedented” 13 percent boost in defense spending, while the proposed $1 trillion national defense topline factored in a $113 billion increase that would come from funds in the pending reconciliation bill (Defense Daily, May 2).
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the SAC-D chair, previously said the administration’s defense budget outline “fails” to meet the required level of investment and has called the move to rely on reconciliation funds a “budgetary sleight of hand” (Defense Daily, May 13).
“If we’re really serious about making the sustained long-term investments in our military then let’s do it [with] more than just a one-time injection of funding. If the administration wants to request a trillion dollar defense budget for fiscal year ‘26 and make a full-year investment in urgent priorities and new programs, let’s do it,” McConnell said on Wednesday.
Hegseth defended the Pentagon’s formulation of its budget plan and the decision to leverage the anticipated reconciliation funds, which have not yet been finalized.
“I understand the dynamics of base bill vs. reconciliation and I concede that. But ultimately, we’re looking at it as one investment for FY ‘26 and we think, with a 13 percent increase over [FY ‘25], that it’s a historic investment,” Hegseth said.
The House and Senate Armed Services Committees have been responsible for crafting the defense portions of the reconciliation bill, which is set to include a total of $150 billion in defense spending over four years.
The Trump administration on Monday provided a document titled “Potential High Congressional Interest Issues for Hill” that outlines the FY ‘26 budget requests for a slate of major programs, and breaks down how that proposed funding level is split between the base budget and what the White House is asking to be included in the reconciliation bill.
For example, the entirety of the Pentagon’s $25 billion request for the Golden Dome missile defense project in FY ‘26 would come from reconciliation spending and not from funding in a defense appropriations bill, according to the document.
Meanwhile, as the Pentagon looks to nearly double funding for the B-21 bomber and accelerate the program, almost half of the funding request is in reconciliation, $4.5 billion, while the remaining $5.8 billion would be in the base budget.
The original version of the defense portion of the reconciliation bill working its way through Congress does include $4.5 billion for the B-21 program (Defense Daily, April 28).
The Air Force’s total $3.5 billion request for F-47 sixth-generation fighter program is split between $2.6 billion in the base budget and $900 million in reconciliation, while the request for F-15EX program has just $87 in discretionary spending and $3 billion for 21 aircraft being sought in the reconciliation bill.
The total $804 million request for the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program to develop drone wingmen would be split between $126 million in the base budget and $678 million in reconciliation.
On the Sentinel program to develop the future intercontinental ballistic missile, the Pentagon’s request has $2.7 billion in the base budget while seeking the other $1.5 billion in the reconciliation bill.
For continued development of the Navy’s Sea-Launched Cruise Missile, the document notes that no discretionary funds are being requested and the entire $1.9 billion funding line for FY ‘26 would come from the reconciliation bill. The same approach is taken with funding the Office of Strategic Capital’s loan program, seeking no funds in the base budget while requesting nearly $1.2 billion from reconciliation.
To fund procurement of two Virginia-class submarines, the Pentagon’s $11 billion request for FY ‘26 is split 1 submarine in the base budget and one in the reconciliation bill.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chair of the Appropriations Committee, criticized the decision to split the submarine procurement between the two bills and said the reconciliation process is “meant to provide one-time supplemental funds to augment the defense budget not to supplant the investments that should be in the base budget.”
The document also notes a $2.6 billion request for a San Antonio-class Amphibious Transport Dock (LPD) ship and nearly $3.9 billion for an America-class Amphibious Assault Ship (LHA) in reconciliation.
While those ships were funded in the House’s original version of the defense portion of the reconciliation bill, the Senate has since removed both requests in the updated legislation (Defense Daily, June 4).
“Lumping reconciliation spending in with full year appropriations risks conflating different objectives,” McConnell said. “In fact, it may well up functioning as a shell game to avoid making the most significant annual investments that we spent years urging the previous administration to make.”
Coons added that requesting such increases via the reconciliation bill is a “partisan gamble” for the budget process.
“DoD’s ability to take care of our warfighters should not be contingent on whether Congress can pass a bill that also explodes the national debt, gives billionaires tax cuts, cuts access to health care, in short is controversial and uncertain. I think it sends a bad message to the U.S. defense industry about the uncertainty of appropriations for key systems at precisely the time we want certainty and we want more from them,” Coons said.