Defense bill negotiator: We’re still talking about the numbers

House and Senate negotiators working on the the 2017 defense authorization bill have not agreed to funding figures yet, according to Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.

{mosads}”A deal has not been reached. We’re still talking about the numbers,” Smith said Thursday morning at the Council on Foreign Relations. 

Smith, one of the four negotiators, called reports on Wednesday that they had agreed to add an extra $9 billion to the $610 billion figure “not true.” 

“That’s not been agreed to because we haven’t agreed to the money,” he told The Hill. 

Smith said House Republicans wanted to added $18 billion more to the budget, above the president’s budget request of $610 billion.

House Republicans passed a defense budget plan earlier this year that stuck to the president’s figure, but would shift $18 billion from the Pentagon’s war fund account to its main budget and force the next president to make up the war funding shortfall with a supplemental.  

The Senate Republicans’ plan adhered to the president’s request, and leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services committees are now negotiating to combine the two versions of the bill for final passage. 

Smith said the “main point of contention is money.” 

“It’s conceivable that I could live with $619 [billion], since it preserves the rest of the bill, and they’ve gotten rid of a lot of bad stuff. So it’s conceivable we can get there,” he said.  

Smith said reports of a deal on funding reached emanated from a “casual conversation” with House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) on Wednesday. 

“I love the way this town works,” he said. “Literally during the photo session on the Armed Services Committee, Mac and I were just talking up there, and I just sort of said, you know, I said everything that I just said to you, and, you know, 12 hours later ‘we had a deal!'” 

“And I tell it you, it was based solely on that casual little back and forth, and I even said, you know, there’s people above me here who are going to have a say in this, so I can’t guarantee it, but personally, I could live with $619 [billion] at this point for all the reasons that were said. That’s not a deal. That’s just a casual conversation that may turn into a deal. We’ll see,” he said.