REGARDLESS OF OVERALL PROSPECTS, HOUSE BUDGET SHOWS DESIRE TO INCREASE DOD SPENDING

The House of Representatives last week announced plans to increase defense spending as part of its overall approach to the federal budget.  While the House GOP budget has as much chance of being passed as Georgia State does of winning the NCAA basketball tournament, the budget does likely foretell of increased appropriations for DOD in FY’16 and beyond.   Specifically, House leaders would like to increase so-called “war funding” by more than a third over what the President called for in his budget.  That would add $36 billion to the DOD bottom line.  Significantly, classifying the funding in this manner would put it out of reach of any sequestration that may come in 2016.  While final spending levels are still a long ways off, all signs point to the Republican-led Congress returning to its traditional “strong on defense” stance, itself a departure from recent House actions where GOP leaders had one-upped the President on defense cuts.  Whether or how much the President will go along with such increases, and what concessions he will try to extract in a negotiation process, are unclear.  Still, it would be difficult to see anything but some sort of DOD increase given concern on terrorism and US military readiness.