Congress is back in session after its August recess, but with only a month left before the fiscal year ends, it’s becoming more and more likely that lawmakers will need to pass a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government until a larger deal is made, according to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas).
“My guess is we have a short term CR (continuing resolution) for some period of time. I don’t know until when, although I would assume it would be until late in the [calendar] year or so,” he told reporters Sept. 8.
A yearlong CR, however, would be a “bad idea,” because it would hold funding steady at the same levels as fiscal year 2015, leaving the Defense Department unable to start new programs and compelling it to spend money on things it may no longer need, he added.
Ultimately, Thornberry wants to see a compromise like the Ryan-Murray deal in 2013, which raised nondiscretionary spending caps for both defense and other areas, he said.
“I think there’s a big number of people in both parties that would like to do that,” he said. “Now, there may be a small number of people who want a confrontation. I wonder if the president is among them.”
A conference report of the House and Senate’s defense authorization bill is still in the pipeline. Thornberry and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) made progress on the bill during the August recess, the HASC chairman said. Most issues are resolved, and Thornberry is hopeful that a report will be available “as soon as possible,” although he declined to speculate on when that could emerge.
“Part of the problem is…we think we have a tentative agreement on certain issues, but that depends on solving others, so you can’t say that it’s only A, B and C [that needs to be solved] because, as everybody always says, nothing is completely settled until everything is,” he said.
Even after the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) conference report is released and passed on the House and Senate floors, it faces an uphill battle. President Barack Obama has threatened to veto the NDAA, which calls for increases in defense spending that exceed the limits set by the Budget Control Act of 2011. Obama has said that he will not sign into law any budget that increases defense accounts and not other nondiscretionary funding.