GOP, Dem clash over defense bill’s war fund

The chairman and ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee clashed over a defense bill’s war funding Wednesday as a daylong debate over the bill began.

Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) argued the same funding tactic was used by Democrats in 2008, while ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) held that the situation was different back then.

At issue is for how long the bill would authorize war funding. The committee’s 2017 National Defense Authorization Act would authorize $610 billion for defense spending.

{mosads}That’s the same amount requested by the Obama administration and follows the 2015 Bipartisan Budget Act, which set spending levels for 2016 and 2017.

But it uses $23 million for base requirements from a war fund known as the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) fund.

The remaining $36 million in OCO would only be authorized until April 30, 2017, forcing the next president to either scale back war plans or request supplemental funding.

Thornberry argued that the new president would be reviewing these activities anyway.

Further, he said, the same thing happened at the end of President George W. Bush’s tenure when Democrats controlled Congress.

“Congress, under a Democratic majority, passed a supplemental ‘bridge fund’ in 2008 that paid for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for part of the year in 2009 until the new administration had a chance to review the situation, which it did, and then it submitted a supplemental request to carry out operations for the rest of the fiscal year,” he said.

While that’s true, Smith countered, sequestration was not an issue back then. If passed as is, war funding would run out just as the Bipartisan Budget Act is expiring and sequestration, or the Budget Control Act, comes back.

“This bill, is playing a very high stakes game,” he said. “Will there be the votes in Congress in April to overturn the Budget Control Act? If there aren’t, we’re going to have troops committed in Iraq and Afghanistan who are going to suddenly run out of money.”