Prominent Republicans Back Scrapping McCarthy–Biden Debt Ceiling Deal for Defense Budget Boost.

Key Republicans are calling for more defense spending than is permitted under the debt ceiling deal negotiated less than a month ago between House GOP leadership and the Biden administration.

Senate Armed Services Committee ranking Republican Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.)—in a statement accompanying the panel’s June 23 adoption of the $886.3 billion fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (FY24 NDAA)—said the proposed annual defense budget “does not adequately fund our defense needs, and I will work to increase the Department of Defense top level as the bill progresses.”

Wicker is among bipartisan critics who note that the debt ceiling deal constrains defense spending to “a historic low” relative to the United States’ gross domestic product and that its 3.3 percent cap above last year’s NDAA is more than 2 percent below the current rate of inflation.

A more robust defense budget is “the best way to deter conflict around the globe,” Wicker said, noting he agrees with committee Chair Rep. Jack Reed’s (D-R.I.) nonbinding statement that “there are growing national security concerns that require additional funds beyond the defense spending limit,” urging Biden “to send emergency supplemental funding requests to address those concerns.”

The House Armed Service Committee in a 58–1 vote on June 22 adopted a similar defense budget as its Senate counterpart, with both featuring the $886 billion top line that matches the Biden administration’s March defense budget request.

But the House plan doesn’t call for additional funding or supplemental defense appropriations, which the Senate Armed Services Committee explicitly does in its proposed defense authorization act, adopted on June 23 in a 24–1 vote.

Nevertheless, House Armed Services Committee Chair Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) is among House GOP critics who say the proposed defense budget is “inadequate.”

A strong advocate for U.S. support for Ukraine, Rogers has been less vocal in backing more funding for Kyiv in recent weeks but has said that more money should be directed into countering China’s growing military.

No Debt-Deal NDAA?

The House and Senate armed services committees last week adopted their versions of the proposed 2024 defense authorization act, setting the stage for floor adoptions, a summer of intra-chamber conferencing and, ideally, adoption by late September.

While both proposed FY24 NDAAs reflect the $886.3 billion top-line figure submitted by the Biden administration, they aren’t identical.

The Senate earmarks $876.8 billion in defense spending while the House’s version outlines $874.2 billion. Each plan estimates varied nondefense appropriations to reach a common top line of $886.3 billion.

As of June 26, the Senate has released only a 33-page executive summary of its proposed plan, which is far less detailed than the 416-page draft NDAA approved by the House Armed Services Committee.

The Senate and House are expected to pass their versions of the defense authorization act in July chamber votes. The House doesn’t convene again until July 11. The Senate returns the following day. Few hearings have been penciled in on the chambers’ July calendar.

Once each chamber adopts its proposed NDAA, conflicts within the plans will be reconciled in bicameral conferencing through summer before one common plan is presented for adoption to both chambers and then to Biden.

Under terms of the new debt ceiling law, the act must be adopted before the new fiscal year begins, on Oct. 1. Failure to do so would induce a 1 percent across-the-board spending trim.

The debt ceiling bill was passed by the House on May 31 and the Senate on June 1. It suspends the nation’s $31.4 trillion borrowing limit until January 2025 in exchange for caps on federal discretionary spending over the next two years.

Under the deal, to provide the 3.3 percent increase in defense spending, discretionary nondefense spending in the FY24 federal budget is capped at $703.7 billion and then limited to no more than a 1 percent increase in 2025.

House Republicans have proposed trimming an additional $120 billion from federal discretionary nondefense spending with proposed cuts of 15 to 30 percent for the Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Interior, Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services departments.

Possible Supplemental Bill

Congressional Democrats oppose the proposed slashes in nondefense spending. They are also rai