In his final scheduled budget testimony before Congress this year, Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Wednesday again pleaded with lawmakers not to use temporary war funds to avoid looming budget caps but instead find a better, long-term fiscal compromise.
And, again, Republicans on Capitol Hill ignored him.
The Senate Appropriations Committee hearing felt like two separate Capitol Hill events, with the Pentagon leaders and Democrats hammering GOP budget plans and Republicans mostly quizzing Carter on unrelated defense topics like Iran and North Korea.
A day earlier, the Senate approved a nonbinding federal budget blueprint with a 51-48 party line vote. The plan calls for boosting the White House's war funding request by almost $40 billion to get around defense spending caps, a move Democrats have decried as little more than a spending gimmick.
Carter labeled plans to boost the overseas contingency funds "clearly a road to nowhere" and reiterated White House veto threats to any budget plan that leaves government-wide spending caps in place.
"If we don't come together and find a different path by fall when a new budget is needed, it will put our department and our troops in an all-too-familiar and very difficult position," he said.
"The (war funding boost) approach is not the kind of widely shared budget agreement that is needed, and we can see now that it won't succeed."
Carter and Hill Democrats want a long-term deal similar to the one adopted by lawmakers in 2013, which staved off the budget caps for all federal agencies for two years.
But Republicans – who now control both chambers of Congress – have shown little appetite for that type of compromise in recent months, and are confident the work-around plan can cap nondefense spending without hurting military funds.
Defense department leaders have not offered their own alternative spending plans if sequestration goes into effect this fall, and Carter warned that the across-the-board cuts would be chaotic and devastating if officials are forced to enact them quickly at the start of the new fiscal year.
But Appropriations Committee ranking member Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., predicted "gridlock and confrontation" with the current Republican plan, raising the possibility of extended financial stress for the military this fall.
A few Republicans on the Senate panel defended the plan as giving the Defense Department more money than expected, but most simply ignored the secretary's concerns over the budget plan.
Carter said the spending caps not only hurt his department's readiness but also overall national security posture, since issues like border security and international diplomacy are handled by other departments who will still face spending caps.
The House and Senate are expected to offer their defense budget drafts to their respective full chambers in coming weeks. The new fiscal year begins Oct. 1.
Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.
