Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday wasted no time firing a shot across the aisle at Democrats over military spending, the Washington Examiner reported.
Democrats have called for a dollar increase in non-defense spending for every dollar added to the military budget. McConnell opened up the 2018 session spoiling for a fight.
"We need to set aside the arbitrary notion that new defense spending be matched equally by new non-defense spending," McConnell said, the Examiner reported. "There is no reason why funding for our national security and our service members should be limited by an arbitrary political formula that bears no relationship to actual need."
Trump signed a $700 billion defense spending bill last month, but Congress needs to vote to scrap the sequestration caps put in place by a 2011 law restricting federal spending.
The next spending deal will require 60 votes in the Senate; the latest stopgap spending deal expires Jan. 19, and Congress needs to find common ground to fund the government.