Republicans in the Senate and House are at odds over defense spending caps set by the debt-limit deal agreed to by President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
Some Republicans on the Senate Appropriations Committee voiced their frustrations Thursday over the Defense Department allocations, The Hill noted.
"If you're looking at China's navy and you think now's the time to shrink our Navy, you sure as hell shouldn't be in the Navy," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said at a committee meeting. "We go from 298 ships under this budget deal to eventually 291… You sunk the Navy. The Congress has sunk eight ships. How many fighter squadrons have we parked because of this deal?"
He maintained that the defense spending cap will also hurt Ukraine's war effort against Russia.
"There's not a penny in this deal to help them keep fighting," Graham said. "Do you really want to be judged in history as having at a moment of consequence to defeat [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to pull all the money for Ukraine?"
He is not alone among Republicans who believe the 3% bump in spending in the debt limit deal was too small
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the ranking Republican on the Appropriations Committee, said she is concerned "that the new debt-limit law caps regular defense funding in fiscal year 2024 at the inadequate level requested by the president … fails to meet the security challenges facing our nation."
Graham and Collins hope to increase defense spending later in the year, possibly by passing a supplemental defense spending bill that includes money for Ukraine, according to The Hill.
Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., chair of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, said he agrees with Graham and Collins that the defense funding levels spelled out by the Senate and House are "inadequate."
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and McCarthy also appear to be at odds over the $886 billion in funding for the Defense Department.
Earlier this month McConnell said the Pentagon funding was not enough.
"The government's work to provide for the common defense remains unfinished," McConnell said. "President Biden's request for the defense budget is simply insufficient given the major challenges that our nation faces. We are investing roughly half as much in defense today as a share of GDP as we were at the height of President [Ronald] Reagan's buildup in the mid-1980s."
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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