The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) has postponed its consideration of the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with lawmakers citing the ongoing debt limit debate as the reason for the delay.
“As we’re in these final talks [on the debt limit] — I mean, there might only be two weeks left before we actually hit the date — I’m hopeful as [House] Speaker [Kevin McCarthy] (R-Calif.) meets with the president and the other Congressional leaders on Friday that they can get some real specifics that can get us closer to an agreement,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said during a press conference on Wednesday. “For now, we’re going to wait and see how that process plays out before starting the NDAA. But we’ve already been doing work on what those policies would look like on the National Defense Authorization Act.”
HASC’s subcommittees were set to mark up their portions of the NDAA this week, with the full committee originally scheduled to take up the annual defense policy bill on May 23.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the HASC chair, announced on Tuesday evening the panel’s consideration of the NDAA was postponed and that he looked forward to starting the process “in the near future.”
Debt limit negotiations continue after the House in late April narrowly passed a Republican proposal to raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion, while the bill contains a provision to roll back government spending to FY ‘22 levels.
The House bill does not explicitly exempt defense from potential reductions to meet that spending cap, while Republican leaders have previously downplayed the potential for billions of dollars in defense spending cuts as part of such a plan (Defense Daily, Jan. 10).
Mike McCord, the Pentagon’s comptroller, has said the department could see a nearly $100 billion topline reduction from its proposed FY ‘24 budget if defense is included in the planned spending cuts (Defense Daily, March 20).
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on HASC, sharply criticized the NDAA delay on Wednesday and called out the potential impact of House Republicans’ debt limit proposal on defense priorities.
“There is no way to make the substantial cuts to discretionary spending the Republican majority is vaguely proposing without doing great harm to the defense budget and the national security of this country. The Republican leadership’s decision to take the debt ceiling increase hostage, to basically play chicken with the full faith and credit of our country, also cannot do anything but jeopardize our national security. Their decision to delay the markup of the National Defense Authorization Act is but the first of what will be many clear indications of these realities,” Smith said in a statement. “Speaker McCarthy delayed the markup of the defense bill because reality has come crashing in on this ridiculous, hypocritical fantasy. You cannot increase the defense budget while refusing to take the steps necessary to actually raise the debt ceiling, and while proposing to make massive cuts to the discretionary budget.”
Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), a member of HASC, echoed Smith’s comments and said the NDAA delay was due to “House Republican leadership’s irresponsible attitude toward the debt ceiling.”
“Speaker McCarthy is delaying this essential legislation to give himself more time to figure out a way to force draconian cuts down the throats of the American people while playing chicken with the full faith and credit of the United States,” Sherrill said in a statement.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus, also said Wednesday the House Republicans debt limit bill would be “devastating to veterans,” citing the potential impact if cuts are made to the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Pentagon to meet the proposed spending caps.
“The reason Republicans did not exempt veterans from these cuts is because if you don’t cut defense and you don’t cut Veterans [Affairs] then to make their numbers work you have to cut the rest of government [spending by] 33 percent to 50 percent. They know that’s unworkable. They know they have to cut Veterans [Affairs] in the bill based on the topline numbers that they wrote into the bill,” Lieu said during a press conference.
The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), according to a Politico report, has also delayed its closed door markup of the FY ‘24 NDAA to mid-June due to the ongoing debt limit debate.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the SASC chair, said last month he sees “tremendous controversy” for Congress if lawmakers increase the defense topline while cutting non-defense spending in the upcoming budget cycle (Defense Daily, April 24).