In early February DOD, through the President, presented their Fiscal 2016 budget to Congress. DOD requested a base budget of $534 billion, an increase of $38 billion from $496 billion in 2015. In addition to the base budget, DOD asked for money for war (called Overseas Contingency Operations or OCO): $51 billion, down from $64 billion in 2015.
The budget hearings have begun, and what may have seemed to be a slam-dunk for the GOP-dominated House and Senate has not. Not even close. After last year’s elections and the start of the 114th Congress, everyone thought that the Republican majority would be on the same sheet of music: cooperate collegially with each other, and band together to pass legislation along party lines. Nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to the Defense budget.
A LITTLE BACKGROUND—
Since 1973, the Republican Study Committee (RSC) has been the preeminent caucus in the House for the GOP. Currently, 170 Members of the House belong to this caucus. The RSC has always pushed for significant cuts in non-defense spending, advocated socially conservative legislation, and supported the right to keep and bear arms. It has proposed an alternative budget every year since 1995. It has unveiled its plan to balance the budget without increasing income taxes. The RSC has more moderate conservatives as members.
However, on January 26, 2015, a new caucus was birthed. The Freedom Caucus was formed with 9 founding GOP Members because the RSC has not been resonating with Republican voters. The caucus was formed to give a voice to countless Americans who feel that Washington does not represent them, and advocates for limited government. It includes over 30 GOP Members and has Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) as it’s Chair—Jordan is the former Chair of the RSC. The Freedom Caucus is more right wing conservative than the RSC (I know, hard to imagine) and has been instrumental in being more fiscally conservative. They don’t necessarily follow the party line with the Speaker. The existence of the Freedom Caucus is illustrative of the fracturing of the GOP in the 114th Congress.
The Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011 (Public Law 112-25) involved the introduction of several complex mechanisms, such as creation of the Congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (sometimes called the “Super Committee”), options for a balanced budget amendment and automatic budget sequestration. The Super Committee was charged with finding over $1 trillion in savings for the Federal government by late December 2011 but they failed, which caused sequestration to happen. No one ever thought sequestration would kick in—it was supposed to be such a bad choice and negative threat that the Super Committee would do their job to avoid sequestration at all costs. But that didn’t happen and BCA is the law. Sequestration requires the same $1.2 trillion in savings as the BCA called for, half from Defense accounts and half from other Federal government accounts. The $500-$600 billion required from Defense is over a ten-year period beginning in 2013. The BCA capped Defense spending each year—Congress gave Defense relief from BCA caps in 2014 and 2015 and added two years to the end of the ten-year time frame. The BCA cap for Fiscal 2016 Defense spending is $499 billion, $35 billion less than what the President requested in February. The President and Members from both parties have continually blasted the automatic cuts as unwise, but no one has produced a viable plan to replace the cuts with deficit-reducing measures that will pass both chambers. So the law remains, and the cuts are predestined to happen.
