Some Conservative Hawks Mobilize against Debt-Ceiling Deal’s Defense-Spending Provisions

While much of the debate surrounding the recent debt-limit deal has focused on non-defense discretionary spending, conservative foreign-policy hawks are unnerved by the agreement’s apparent caps on defense spending.

In short, the current version of the proposal would codify President Biden’s $886 billion defense-budget proposal for the coming year — a level of spending that Republican lawmakers have panned as a de facto cut to military spending. If implemented, that would be a 3.3 precent increase to defense expenditures compared to the budget passed last year. Taken together with inflation, that’s a cut to defense spending in real terms.

Then, in 2025, defense spending would increase by an additional 1 percent under the deal.

So far, most Republican detractors of the deal have primarily argued that it fails to cut non-defense spending by an adequate amount. But Republican defense hawks who have called for massive military-spending boosts to contend with increasing threats from China and Russia might not be happy with it either.

In March, for instance, Senator Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called Biden’s budget request “woefully inadequate and disappointing,” adding that it “is a serious indication of President Biden’s failure to prioritize national security.

As of Monday afternoon, a handful of conservative defense hawks have spoken up about this aspect of the agreement.

“Have total disgust for political leaders’ decision to make it remotely possible to gut our national security apparatus at a time of great peril,” Senator Lindsey Graham wrote yesterday on Twitter, urging congressional leaders to “take this absurd idea off the table.” He said that he supports raising the debt ceiling by an additional 90 days to find an alternative “to undo this catastrophe for defense.”

And while Florida governor Ron DeSantis and former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley were some of the first GOP presidential candidates to announce their opposition to the deal, only former vice president Mike Pence has specifically cited its treatment of defense spending as one of his reasons for opposing it.

“Congress’ debt limit deal doesn’t just kick the can down the road, it uses Washington smoke and mirror games to make small reforms while weakening our military at a time of increasing threats from foreign adversaries,” the former vice president wrote in a statement posted by his nonprofit, Advancing American Freedom.