If Democrats win control of the House in the midterms, they would take over leadership of key committees such as Armed Services and could use that position to push for new initiatives regarding the military, according to a report in Stars & Stripes on Tuesday.
“I think the biggest difference will probably be more oversight; We’re not clear exactly where this administration is going with the military,” said Rep. Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee who could lead the panel if his party takes control of the House.
A case in point is the deadly November 2017 attack in Niger, in which four soldiers were killed.
Smith said that under the Obama administration, “there was a rigor to their [military] decisions, [but] there seems not to be a similar rigor with the Trump administration,” which has led some Democrats to push for limiting the president’s war powers.
However, Smith said overall change might not be so dramatic, stressing that “Donald Trump is still going to be president, and defense policy has always been a reasonably bipartisan issue.”
But Democrats also have raised concerns about Trump’s federal spending fueling large increases in the deficit, and the president’s restrictions on who can serve - from attempts to ban transgender troops to new obstacles for immigrant recruits.
Democrats “clearly feel passionate about this and they intend to make them issues,” said Kurt Couchman of the Defense Priorities think tank.
A key battle would most likely be over so-called sequestration – automatic, across-the-board budget cuts, which are slated to return for the 2020 fiscal year after lawmakers in February reached a two-year deal to lift spending caps.
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