A move by the U.S. Senate’s GOP caucus to insert $18 billion in the Fiscal Responsibility Act for the Pentagon’s fiscal 2024 Unfunded Priority Lists (UPLs) failed, as the amendment by Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) did not gain the 60 votes on June 1 required for passage.
The amendment would have removed more than $70 billion in Internal Revenue Service (IRS) appropriations to increase the fiscal 2024 defense cap from $886 billion in the legislation to nearly $905 billion and the fiscal 2025 defense cap from $895 billion to $950 billion.
While all 47 Republican senators present and two Democrats, Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), voted “yes” on Sullivan’s amendment, the 48 other Senate Democrats present voted “no.”
Before the Senate voted on the amendment, Sullivan said that “the choice is clear–more Navy ships, soldiers, and Marines to protect America or more IRS agents to harass Americans.”
In a rejoinder, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said that passage of Sullivan’s amendment “would be an even bigger Republican handout to wealthy tax cheats—nearly $200 billion.”
“Second, at a time when Congress is supposed to be debating fiscal responsibility, this amendment double counts billions and billions of dollars by increasing the deficit with more spending on defense contractors and bigger handouts to wealthy tax cheats,” he said.
One of the questions arising out of the enactment of the Fiscal Responsibility Act is how Congress will handle the UPLs (Defense Daily, June 1). The deal leaves no room for the UPLs without removing other line items to fund them. As such, Congress will likely be able to fund items on the UPLs only in an emergency supplemental.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has been the most outspoken in opposition to the UPLs and has argued that the Pentagon should fund equipment emergency requests through reprogramming. Warren said that, while the submission of annual UPLs is a requirement, U.S. European Command and U.S. Transportation Command submitted UPLs last year of zero dollars.