President: GOP is ‘shortchanging’ military

President Obama indicated Monday that he will veto a final defense authorization bill that congressional Republicans are hoping to get on his desk by mid-July.  

“What we’re not going to do is to accept a budget that shortchanges our long-term requirements for new technologies, for readiness,” he said during a press briefing at the Pentagon.  

{mosads}”We’re not going to eat our seed corn by devoting too much money on things we don’t need now and robbing ourselves of the capacity to make sure that we’re prepared for future threats,” he said.  

The Republican bill would adhere to budget caps known as sequestration, but then add an extra $38 billion in a war fund that does not adhere to the caps in order to boost overall spending. 

The White House has urged lawmakers to lift the budget caps on defense and non-defense budgets, and threatened a presidential veto of any bill that adheres to those caps. That threat applies to the defense authorization bill, which authorizes spending but does not allocate funding.

Obama said non-defense spending on education and research was as important as spending on the military.  

“We shortchange those, we’re going to be less secure,” he added. 

Obama also pushed back against Republican arguments that his veto would lead to troops not getting authorized pay raises. 

“Our men and women are going to get paid,” he said.

“And if you’ll note that I’ve now been president for 6.5 years and we’ve had some wrangling with Congress in the past. Our service members haven’t missed a paycheck,” he said. 

“But what is also important in terms of our budget is making sure that we are not shortchanging all the elements of American power that allow us to secure the nation and to project our power around the world,” he said. 

Senate Democrats have vowed to block any spending bills from being considered until Republicans sit down for talks on lifting the caps.

The president also defended his proposed defense budget, which would be the exact same amount as the Republican proposal, but would not adhere to the caps. It would provide $51 billion in the war fund, versus the GOP plan’s $89 billion. 

“I’ve worked very closely with the chairman and the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a budget that is realistic and that looks out into the future and says this is how we’re going to handle any possible contingency,” he said. 

“And we can’t do that if we’ve got a budget that shortchanges vital operations and continues to fund things that are not necessary,” he said. 

The president was flanked by five four-star military officials during the briefing, including the Pentagon’s No. 1 and No. 2 civilian leadership.

He was at the Pentagon on a rare visit to the Pentagon to receive an update from military advisers on efforts against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.