New Speaker Johnson’s budget strategy stretches US response in Middle East

House Speaker Johnson’s (R-La.) funding strategy is threatening to stretch the U.S military as it responds to heightened tensions with Iran and its proxies in the Middle East. 

Johnson’s proposal last month for a stopgap funding bill for the Defense Department, set to expire on Feb. 2, means Pentagon spending is frozen at the previous year’s levels. 

But with the start of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, a conflict which brought unplanned U.S. troop movements in the Middle East, the Pentagon has had to scramble to find money from elsewhere in the building. 

That means dollars meant for troop training and other readiness efforts have taken a hit, Pentagon officials say. 

Since Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, defense officials have ordered to the region troops, aircraft, and two carrier strike groups, the Dwight D. Eisenhower, now in the Gulf of Aden, and the Gerald R. Ford, which sails in the eastern Mediterranean. 

But that massive amount of firepower is expensive, and the cost wasn’t planned in last year’s budget, under which the Pentagon is currently operating. 

DOD has not yet released an estimate of the total cost of the U.S. support for Israel, but the price tag is expected to be high, and there’s only so many places defense officials can pull that money from. 

“Only so many accounts are liquid, meaning where you can get cash fast,” said Mackenzie Eaglen, a former congressional adviser on defense issues who is now with the American Enterprise Institute. 

She said liquid accounts included training and readiness, munitions, flying hours and weapons systems sustainment. “If you’re comptroller and you need money in a pinch, those are the piggy banks you raid in the hope that you’ll get paid back later,” she added.

“I’m sure it’s very chaotic in the comptroller’s office right now.”

U.S. operations related to Israel also weren’t included in President Biden’s supplemental request for Israel and Ukraine, dollars the Pentagon hoped would alleviate shortfalls as it supports the two wars at the same time.

“As with any contingency operations that occur outside of our previous planning assumptions, the Military Departments are cash flowing U.S. operations in support of Israel from existing accounts with funds provided by the Continuing Resolution (CR),” a defense official said in a statement to The Hill. 

However, they insisted the department “remains confident in our ability to support both our Israel and CENTCOM requirements, while maintaining our own readiness.” 

Before the Pentagon can see relief, lawmakers still must contend with the annual defense appropriations bill, something they don’t plan to take up until January. And even when they do, experts are not optimistic on whether they can get any real work done thanks to the time crunch.  

“January is a dumpster fire. Period,” Eaglen said. “The House doesn’t return till [Jan. 9] and there still is no framework agreement. There’s dreaming and then there’s legislative calendar math, and there are not enough days to avoid either a shutdown or another continuing resolution and possibly both.” 

The massive $886.3 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal 2024 last week passed Congress and awaits Biden’s signature. But while the nearly 3,100-page legislation sets DOD policy and authorizes spending, the Pentagon can’t receive a cent until the House and Senate pass and Biden signs a fiscal 2024 defense appropriations bill. 

The holdup on that legislation centers around on the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), which lawmakers and Biden agreed to earlier this year. The act stipulates the federal government can only spend $1.59 trillion in fiscal 2024, which began Oct. 1, with another $69 billion in side agreements. But Johnson, who wasn’t included FRA talks, has led House Republicans in pushing to renegotiate the deal.  

To avoid a government shutdown in the meantime, Johnson last month brought forward the unusual proposal to continue funding for some agencies and programs, including some veterans’ services, until Jan. 19, while funding others, including the Pentagon, until Feb. 2. The combination approach was meant to placate GOP lawmakers concerned with pushing through major spending bills ahead of the holiday break. 

“This two-step continuing resolution is a necessary bill to place House Republicans in the best position to fight for conservative victories,” Johnson said in a statement at the time. “The bill will stop the absurd holiday-season omnibus tradition of massive, loaded up spending bills introduced right before the Christmas recess.” 

But that plan comes with a nearly impossible time crunch, with lawmakers having just eight legislative days once they return to agree to pass trillions of dollars in funding before the Jan. 19 deadline — then another two weeks for the Feb. 2 tier. 

That leaves the Pentagon staring down a government shutdown should no deal get reached, or a full-year CR, with top officials in the building said to be preparing by sending out guidance to the military services to slow spending dramatically come Jan. 1, 2024, according to Eaglen.

Exacerbating the situation is the lack of solid framework for how spending bills will eventually get passed.  

“Is it the FRA for the 12 appropriations bills, is it FRA plus ‘side deals?’ Is it something lower for House conservatives? Eaglen said. “It’s so winding. It’s like there’s 18 different choose your own adventures and they’re all terrible.” 

Pentagon officials have repeatedly warned against repeated, short-term CRs, as they say the stopgap measures harm military readiness by failing to account for changing priorities and inflation. But a full-year stopgap measure, which the Pentagon has never had to contend with, would be far worse, defense leaders warn.

In separate letters sent to top Senate Appropriations Committee lawmakers over the past several weeks, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. C.Q. Brown Jr. and the civilian heads of the military services detailed how damaging a full-year CR would be for the military.

“A year-long CR would misalign billions of dollars, subject Service members and their families to unnecessary stress, damage our readiness, and impede our ability to react to emergent events,” Austin wrote Dec. 12.

Under the current CR, DOD funding is frozen at last year’s levels, preventing officials from moving forward with most acquisitions and new programs stipulated in the NDAA without a full spending bill. 

Brown, in a letter sent to Senate Appropriations Committee chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) in late November, outlined several such major initiatives the Pentagon would be forced to sideline in the event of a full year CR.

“DoD has never operated under a year-long CR; it would be historically costly to the Joint Force. In a CR, the DoD’s actual buying power is significantly impacted and degraded,” Brown wrote. 

“Thousands of programs will be impacted with the most devastating impacts to our national defense being to personnel, nuclear triad modernization, shipbuilding and ship maintenance, munitions production and replenishment,” and efforts to address China in the Indo-Pacific, he added. 

The Pentagon is currently slated to receive a 1 percent cut come Jan. 1, 2024, which would mean losing $10 billion, as stipulated by the FRA.

And Biden’s $105 billion national security package — meant to provide more assistance to Israel in its conflict with Hamas, Ukraine in its war with Russia, boost U.S. border security efforts — continues to be a point of contention in Congress. 

Senate Republicans insist that such foreign aid come with major border security policy changes, a sticking point that has led to dead ends on reaching a bipartisan deal. 

Eaglen predicted that the Pentagon will likely get a reimbursement for the Middle East deployments via a supplemental, but that won’t paper over bigger problems if Johnson’s spending strategy fails to yield a new budget.