The Republicans leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee have rolled out their $150 billion defense spending plan for the forthcoming reconciliation bill, which includes $25 billion for the Golden Dome missile defense system and tens of billions to boost shipbuilding and production of munitions and drones.
Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and Sen. Roger Wicker, the HASC and SASC chairs, respectively, both cited the bill’s “historic investments” in new technology, which includes funding spaced-based intercept capabilities, with the House panel set to consider the legislation on Tuesday.
“This legislation is a historic investment of $150 billion to restore America’s military capabilities and strengthen our national defense,” Rogers said. “Our military’s resources have declined over the years, and defense spending as a percentage of GDP has dropped to the lowest levels since before WWII. Our defense industrial base has weakened. America’s deterrence is failing and without a generational investment in our national defense, we will lose the ability to defeat our adversaries. With this bill, we have the opportunity to get back on track and restore our national security and global leadership.”
Earlier this month, Congress passed a compromise budget resolution that set a blueprint for passing Trump administration priorities via the reconciliation process, to include plans for spending $150 billion on defense over the next four years (Defense Daily, April 10).
Congressional Republicans are still facing negotiations on a range of high-ticket items for the eventual reconciliation bill, to include potentially finding up to $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, finalizing details on raising the debt ceiling and extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts.
After HASC’s markup of the defense portion of the bill, it’ll be sent to the House Budget Committee that will compile it with the other committee’s portions of the legislation to form the full reconciliation bill. When the Senate then takes up the measure, SASC may conduct its own markup prior to the upper chamber’s consideration of the legislation.
The reconciliation process would allow the Senate, when the eventual bill gets there, to pass billions of dollars in budget-related Trump administration priorities without requiring the 60-vote threshold needed to break the filibuster, while the House will require a near-unified GOP caucus to support the measure facing likely unanimous Democratic opposition over planned spending cuts in the legislation.
“The House and Senate Armed Services Committees developed this legislation in close conjunction with the White House to modernize America’s military, secure the border, and strengthen national security,” HASC and SASC wrote in a joint release.
The $24.7 billion Golden Dome and missile defense section of the bill compromises the second largest bucket of funding, behind the $34 billion for shipbuilding, with HASC noting it “supports President Trump’s vision for a layered missile defense shield for America” and “develops the space-based assets needed to support the system and rapidly accelerates defense against hypersonic threats to the homeland.”
Trump in late January signed an executive order to pursue the massive, likely multi-billion dollar Golden Dome project, originally called “Iron Dome For America,” which is intended to defend against ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missile threats (Defense Daily, Jan. 28).
The bill specifically includes $5.6 billion for development of space-based and boost phase intercept capabilities and $7.2 billion to develop and build military space-based sensors as well as $2.2 billion for acceleration of hypersonic defense systems and nearly $2 billion for improved ground-based missile defense radars.
The Pentagon’s continued push to increase munitions production capacity would receive a $21 billion boost, with the bill including billions in funding for a wide range of weapons across the services, including hypersonic, air-to-air, cruise, anti-ship, ballistic, and anti-radiation missiles, as well as funds to expand industrial base capacity and ramp up domestic production of rare earth and critical minerals.
The bill also includes $1 billion to expand the industrial base for one-way attack drones.
Lawmakers also included $14 billion to “expedite innovation to the warfighter,” which covers $1.1 billion to grow the capacity of the small UAS industrial base, scaling the developing of low cost, attritable weapon systems and $2 billion funds “for the expansion of Defense Innovation Unit scaling of commercial technology for military use.”
The $34 billion for shipbuilding in the bill includes $4.6 billion for a second Virginia-class submarine in FY ‘27 and $5.4 billion for two additional Guided Missile Destroyer ships.
Nuclear deterrence efforts received $12 billion, which covers $4.5 billion for acceleration of the new B-21 long-range bomber and $2 billion to speed up development and procurement of the nuclear armed sea-launched cruise missile program.
The bill also includes $11 billion for Indo-Pacific-related efforts, to include $850 million “for activities to protect United States interests and deter Chinese Communist Party aggression through provision of military support and assistance to the military, central government security forces, and central government security agencies of Taiwan.”