GOP chairman: Trump’s budget ‘shortchanges’ military

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) is asserting that President Trump’s defense budget “shortchanges” the military ahead of hearings on the Pentagon’s fiscal 2018 budget.

“Only three of the Army’s 58 Brigade Combat Teams are ‘ready to fight tonight.’ More than half the Navy’s airplanes cannot fly because they are awaiting maintenance and spare parts. The Air Force is short 1,500 pilots and 3,000 mechanics, and its fleet is older and smaller than ever,” Thornberry writes in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

“Since 2010 the defense budget has been cut by more than 20%, but the world has not become 20% safer,” he continues.

{mosads}Thornberry calls for major increases in military spending and highlights funding increases under the Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan administrations.

“Rebuilding the military after the 1970s took serious and sustained effort. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, the Carter administration raised defense spending by 12% in 1979 and 15% in 1980,” Thornberry writes. “Ronald Reagan added even more: 17% in 1981 and 18% in 1982. … Repairing the damage done to the military in our time will require a similar sort of response.”

Defense Secretary James Mattis and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford are to testify before four separate House and Senate panels this week on the Pentagon’s fiscal 2018 budget, starting with Thornberry’s committee Monday.

Trump proposed a $603 billion base defense budget for fiscal 2018 that is far below the $640 billion that Thornberry and other defense hawks wanted to fix a so-called readiness crisis.

Thornberry and other lawmakers will likely press Mattis and Dunford for an explanation as to why the budget proposal was not higher, as well as question the officials on troop levels and ship building.

Trump’s budget left much to be desired by defense hawks, who want higher troop levels, more ships and more aircraft.