McCarthy shoots down idea of Pentagon supplemental 

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Monday shot down the idea of Congress adopting an immediate bump in Pentagon spending, arguing that policymakers should be searching instead for places to create efficiencies — and glean savings — from the massive Defense Department. 

Congress last week passed a debt ceiling package that will increase defense spending next year by a sub-inflation rate of roughly 3 percent, leading some defense hawks — particularly in the Senate — to call for a supplemental spending bill to boost Pentagon funding. 

But McCarthy is nipping that effort in the bud, noting that Pentagon spending has never been higher while vowing to use the traditional budget process to seek reforms in how weapon systems are delivered — and ultimately determine the appropriate level of funds needed to protect the U.S. and its allies. 

“The last five audits the Department of Defense has failed. So there’s a lot of place for reform [where] we can have a lot of savings,” McCarthy told reporters in the Capitol. 

“We’ve plussed it up. This is the most money we’ve ever spent on defense — this is the most money anyone in the world has ever spent on defense. So I don’t think the first answer is to do a supplemental,” he added. “Let’s go through our approps process.”

As part of the debt ceiling agreement cut between McCarthy and President Biden, lawmakers put a cap on most discretionary spending over the next two years, essentially freezing funding for countless federal programs in fiscal 2024, with a 1 percent increase set to kick in for 2025. 

While the Pentagon was the rare agency not to be hit with a spending freeze next year, the 3 percent hike, to $886 billion, represents a cut when inflation is factored in. And another provision of the legislation, which would cut spending by 1 percent across the board if Congress fails to pass all 12 of its 2024 appropriations bills on time, would apply equally to the defense budget.

Some defense hawks have condemned those limits, arguing that the Pentagon needs much more funding if the U.S. is to have a chance of confronting China, Russia and other adversaries in the great power competition — economic, military and geopolitical — poised to define the coming decades.

“I will not relent until I have assurances that the damage being done to the defense budget can be minimized by a supplemental,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) tweeted last week. 

McCarthy, while describing himself as a defense hawk, nonetheless dismissed such warnings as exaggerated, saying he wants to find places to make taxpayer dollars on defense go further, not just throw more money at the Pentagon. He promoted the idea of seeking out “new startup companies that can build weaponry faster.” 

“There’s a lot of places you can find savings, and … make our money go further, more efficiently and more effectively,” he said. “That’s why I don’t like the idea of someone just walking in and just saying, ‘Oh, we need a supplemental.’ No, we just plussed up the number for spending on defense.”