Republican lawmakers are facing an internal battle over defense spending, while prominent Republicans including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Sen. Roger Wicker (Miss.), the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee of the Senate, are pushing for big increases, while conservatives are sounding alarms about the debt.
The battle within the Republican Party over how much to increase defense spending to deter threats from Russia, China and Iran will become public next month when the Senate is set to debate the annual National Defense Authorization Act.
McConnell and Wicker are laying the groundwork for that debate by calling for big increases in defense spending above what the Biden administration and the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Tom Cole (Okla.), have proposed for 2025.
They are facing a small group of fiscal conservatives in both chambers who wield outsized influence in the Republican Party’s narrow majority and want to maintain a strict cap on the levels of defense and non-defense spending.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), at the start of the 118th Congress, called on Republicans “to give up the sacred cow that says we will never touch a military dollar.”
On Thursday, he accused Wicker of wanting to “explode” the defense budget.
“Big-spending Republicans want to blow up the military budget. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: both parties are to blame for the $34T debt!” Paul wrote on social media site X.
Paul joined Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) last year in introducing legislation to require the Department of Defense to undergo an independent audit and determine that any defense component that does not managed to complete a clean audit returned 1 percent of its budget to the Treasury Department.
Other Senate conservatives are joining Paul’s call to eliminate wasteful spending at the Pentagon.
“I think we need to spend more on defense. I also think we have to fix the underlying procurement process,” Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), who led Senate Republican opposition to the recent $61 billion Ukraine aid package, told The Hill earlier this month.
“There is a lot that needs to be done here. While I support an increase in defense spending, just throwing money at this problem will not make it go away,” he said.
Vance, in a New York Times op-ed last month, warned that the U.S. industrial base simply does not have the capacity to match Russian forces in Ukraine.
“Our national security interests can be — and often are — separate from our economic interests. The notion that we should prolong a bloody, horrific war because it has been good for American business is grotesque,” he wrote.
The influence of fiscal hawks in the House GOP conference is increased by Democrats who refuse to increase defense spending without “parity” increases for non-defense programs.
His power in the lower house was reflected in the top-line spending figures Cole released earlier this month. He proposed a 6% reduction for non-defense programs and a 1% increase for defense programs.
“I wish I could do better,” Cole told reporters after briefing his colleagues this month on the spending limits.
McConnell and Wicker say the House’s proposed defense spending target is not adequate to meet national security needs.
McConnell has repeatedly argued in recent months that the United States faces “linked” threats from Russia, China and Iran and the most dangerous international situation since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
“To seriously confront them, we must seriously invest in our own defense,” he said Thursday during a visit to the Kentucky National Guard in Frankfort.
“The national security supplement, which became law last month, was much more difficult to pass than it should have been,” he said, acknowledging strong resistance within his own party to providing $61 billion to Ukraine, that will be spent to modernize the USA. military arsenals.
McConnell warned that “decades of underinvestment in our own industrial capacity” “has undermined national security” and that “over the past four years our national defense has actually recorded net losses in its budget.”
“Historic inflation and chronic underinvestment have hampered the procurement of vital ammunition and equipment,” he said.
McConnell this week endorsed a proposal from Wicker, the ranking member of the military panel, to increase defense spending for 2025 by $55 billion and bring it from 2.9% to 5% of gross domestic product (GDP). ) “over time”.
“@SenatorWicker is right. The demands of strategic competition require an urgent commitment to strengthening our military and defense industrial base. This is not the time to tie defense spending to internal party priorities. It’s time for a generational investment in American strength,” McConnell posted on X.
Wicker’s proposal, “21st Century Peace through Strength,” which he unveiled Wednesday, warns that the nation’s defense industrial base is underfunded and unprepared for war with a major adversary.
His proposal calls for implementing a Guam defense system as quickly as possible, reviewing air defense systems to combat drones, completing the $5.2 billion backlog of Defense Production Act projects, acceleration of military modernization in Taiwan and the Philippines and the blunting of Chinese and Russian expansion in Africa and Central and South America.
Wicker, however, acknowledged in an interview with the Associated Press that getting colleagues to agree to a big increase in defense spending would be “a hill to climb.”
But he warned that it would be “foolish” for policymakers not to take the threats posed by Russia, China and Iran seriously enough to prepare for war.
“I think the fact that we are in a new Cold War is clear,” he said.
Wicker unveiled his spending plan ahead of next month’s Senate debate on the defense authorization bill, but it’s unclear whether he will win the support of Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed (DR.I. ).
Reed will likely refrain from endorsing a number of top-tier defense spending until Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.), Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) , House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, reach agreement with their Republican counterparts on key defense spending numbers and non-defense.
Murray said this month he would insist on parity between defense and non-defense spending increases.
“When my Republican colleagues insist that, despite the Fiscal Responsibility Act, we need to increase spending on national security, I will also insist that increased defense spending be accompanied by a similar increase in investment here at home,” Murray said. .
McConnell immediately rejected that demand, telling reporters, “I absolutely cannot accept that.”
Speaking to Kentucky National Guard officials on Thursday, McConnell argued that spending big now on defense construction would likely save the country money in the long run by deterring a military conflict with Russia, China or Iran.
“Financing preparedness is much cheaper than financing a war. It’s very important to remember those critics who say, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t spend here or there.’ In a conflict, you are actually spending money,” he said.
“In World War II, we represented 37% of our GDP. Right now, we are spending around 2% of our GDP [on defense]. This needs to be addressed if we are to be adequately prepared to avoid much greater expenditure, in addition to loss of life”, he warned.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
