Defense

GOP rep pushes to lift Pentagon spending caps

by Ellen Mitchell - 03/22/17 3:50 PM ET

A senior Republican on the House Armed Services Committee says he has 122 lawmakers backing his call for Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to repeal Pentagon spending limits.

“We are up to 122 House members that are not Armed Services members … calling for the repeal of sequestration,” Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) said at a conference Wednesday.

Turner, who first circulated the letter in January, is pushing for a floor vote to repeal the spending caps, mandated by the 2011 Budget Control Act.

{mosads}”As you are well aware, President Obama’s sequestration policy continues to harm our military and greatly diminishes our ability to defend our global position,” states the draft letter. “Congress must take immediate action to reverse this harmful trend.”

Turner told conference attendees he is hoping to get at least 150 signatures on the letter, a number that falls short of the 215 member votes needed to pass the repeal on the floor.

“There are a number of people, leadership and appropriators, for example, many of which who will not sign on to a letter, but certainly we can get folks who would go to the house floor,” he said.

Turner also ripped President Trump’s proposed $603 billion base defense budget for fiscal year 2018, released late last month, noting it’s far short of the $640 billion desired by House and Senate defense leaders.

The budget proposal, touted as a massive, 10 percent increase to defense spending, is only a 3 percent more than President Obama’s projected budget request, according to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.).

“Our message to the White House right now is if the president doesn’t come forward, if we’re not able to significantly increase the dollars that are currently in the president’s budget for 2018, then we’re basically going to have President Trump in his entire first year not year able to grab the rudder and turn the tide on lack of modernization and lack of readiness issues in the Department of Defense,” Turner said.

Tags John McCain Paul Ryan