OPINION -- “That brings me to a concern I want to put on the record. In addition to the billions requested for the F-35 [fighter-bomber] enterprise, several of these programs I consider highest priority are being funded through the mandatory [reconciliation bill] request -- $17.5 billion for Golden Dome [anti-missile system], $7.7 billion for air moving-target indicator, $4.6 billion for munitions equipment, and $3.9 billion for space data network. Mandatory funding [via the reconciliation bill] bypasses the annual appropriations process, which is how Congress exercises its oversight responsibility. If these programs are as critical as the [fiscal 2027] budget request suggests, and I believe they are, then they deserve all the full scrutiny and sustained attention that we on the appropriations process provide.”
That was Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), Chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, during his opening statement at the April 30, hearing called to go over the fiscal 2027 budgets for the U.S. Air Force (USAF) and Space Force (USSF).
There are two reasons I’m focusing on this Appropriations Subcommittee hearing.
One is because the session was cut short after 53 minutes so members could take part in a House floor vote, but then the hearing was not resumed. When the hearing adjourned, only seven of the 13 subcommittee members present had their five minutes to ask questions, although they were at the end given an opportunity to submit questions in writing.
This was one more example of a House subcommittee just not playing its assigned Constitutional role, but a questionable remedy exists which I will discuss further below.
Equally important, as Calvert pointed out above, the Trump administration is playing around with the normal defense budget process, based on what the House and Senate let them do last year when Congress passed an $839 billion fiscal 2026 Defense Appropriations Bill, but then added another $152 billion for defense in the so-called “one, big, beautiful” reconciliation bill.
This year, as part of the Trump administration $1.5 trillion request to fund the Defense Department (DoD) next year, the Pentagon has planned for $1.15 trillion being inside the base budget, with an additional $350 billion coming from a proposed additional second round of reconciliation bills.
By putting that $350 billion in a later reconciliation bill, the administration seeks to avoid the need for 60 votes for passage in the Senate, which regular legislation would require, but the reconciliation bill needs only a majority vote.
Over at the Senate Armed Services Committee that same day, April 30, Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) brought up the reconciliation idea with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was testifying about the fiscal 2027 DoD budget.
King asked Hegseth, “Why do we suddenly have a two-part [DoD] budget where this committee and the Congress generally has oversight and input to a process where a quarter of the [DoD] budget [the part in the reconciliation bill] is essentially a slush fund?”
Hegseth responded, “I wouldn't characterize a quarter of it as a slush fund, but I recognize that we see it in totality as a $1.5 trillion budget separation.” Hegseth then unsuccessfully tried to explain by adding, “Why the two pieces…why there are multiple vehicles, but we are fully committed with working with the committee to ensure that the right vehicles are utilized to get precisely this amount $1.5 trillion.”
Meanwhile, there is another chance for the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee members to ask questions about the DoD fiscal 2027 budget today when Hegseth, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine and Acting Assistant Defense Secretary (Comptroller) Jules W. Hurst III appear before them to review the $1.5 trillion DoD budget request.
However there will be a time constraint.
It turns out that the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee also is scheduled to hold its hearing today, May 12, with the same witnesses. The House subcommittee hearing is set for 8 a.m. this morning in a room in the Rayburn House Office Building. The Senate group is scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. in a room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, on the other side of Capitol Hill.
I must point out that at best the House Defense Subcommittee members will have much less than 90 minutes for questions, and if all 18 members show up not all will get their allotted five minutes to ask anything. That is not worthwhile oversight.
Remember the 53 minute House Defense Subcommittee meeting where only seven asked questions? They were only dealing with an Air Force fiscal 2027 budget of $339 billion, which by the way is 38 percent greater than this year. Those same members today will be trying to cover questions about a $1.5 trillion DoD budget that is 40 percent larger than the current one.
Having read all testimony from that shortened April 30 session on the fiscal 2027 Air Force budget, I think the public needs to know more about the sixth generation F-47 which is to be the future world’s most stealthy and lethal fighter. Last year, Boeing won a $20 billion contract to build 185 of them. They will exceed Mach 2 in speed, which is twice the speed of sound and faster than 1,500 miles-per-hour with a combat radius of 1,000 nautical miles.
The F-47s are also designed so that their pilots will be the in-the-air directors of up to eight unmanned AI-driven drones, named by the Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCAs). According to what Air Force Secretary Dr. Troy E. Meink told the subcommittee back on April 30, the F-47 “and its integration with autonomous CCA represents a generational leap in combat capability that will redefine the battle-space.”
Meink said, “We are allocating over $5 billion in fiscal year 2027 for F-47 engineering and manufacturing development. The USAF is investing $1.4 billion for CCA testing and development, which puts us on a direct path to procure over 150 CCA by the end of the [five year] Future Years Defense Program, rapidly scaling our combat mass.”
How is all of that progressing?
But one question that needs to be asked at today’s hearings with Hegseth is what’s the reason for dividing the $1.5 trillion budget up in the first place?
At the end of the shortened House subcommittee April 30 hearing, Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) asked Air Force Secretary Meink if the division of the DoD budget was “a one year anomaly, or is the Department planning to continue to shift defense funding into mandatory accounts [reconciliation bills] going forward, which would give this committee [House Appropriations] far less oversight over defense spending.”
Meink at first said, “We are always happy to come down and walk through with you how we’re spending the resources, fully transparent, whether it’s reconciliation or in the base budget.”
When Morelle persisted and asked about “the out years,” Meink replied, “I can’t speak to the level of conversation or the [Trump administration] strategy going forward Congressman.”
To which Morelle said, “Let me just say this, and then I’ll yield back…I think this is a dangerous precedent. I think Article One [of the Constitution which established Congress] responsibilities and the role that is vested in this committee to do oversight – I’m a new member [of the subcommittee] – but I think this is really important, not only for congressional integrity and for congressional responsibilities and prerogatives for the American people.”
I agree.
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