Senate appropriators advanced their proposal for the 2025 national defense budget this week, with $21 billion more on the table than under the House version of the defense budget bill.
The Senate Appropriations Committee held a mark-up hearing on Aug. 1 to advance their proposal for the 2025 Defense Appropriations Act. The Senate version of the annual budget bill comes in at $852.2 billion, compared to the $833 billion version the House passed in June.
The Senate committee approved the defense budget bill in a 28–0 vote, moving it one step closer to a full vote on the Senate floor.
“This bipartisan bill builds on our efforts in the National Security Supplemental to strengthen our defenses in key regions, deter conflict, promote stability, and ultimately, keep our nation safe—with new investments to ensure our military remains the best in the world while supporting our servicemembers and standing with our allies,” Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said following the hearing.
Sen. John Tester (D-Mont.), who chairs the Appropriations Committee’s Defense Subcommittee, said the bill will help the United States keep pace with China militarily and extend additional benefits to military families.
The Senate bill includes $37 billion for shipbuilding, up from the $32.4 billion President Joe Biden requested in his own budget proposal. The Senate bill also comes in around $5.9 billion above Biden’s request for various global force readiness efforts and $1 billion above his request for the National Guard and reserve budgets.
The committee said its bill also provides $1 billion more for procuring critical missiles and torpedos than Biden requested, and provides another $1.2 billion more than the president requested to modernize and expand U.S. government ammunition production facilities. The bill provides another $1.5 billion more than Biden requested for the defense industrial base.
The Senate bill adds $2 billion more for general facility, sustainment, and modernization than Biden requested and $1.3 billion more than the president requested for critical facility upgrades.
The Senate bill would give the U.S. Air Force an additional $200 million more than Biden requested to purchase six additional F-15EX fighter jets. The bill would give the U.S. Navy an additional $252 million above what Biden requested for its nuclear-armed submarine-launched cruise missile program, and $500 million more than Biden requested for the Navy’s next-generation fighter program.
In all, the Senate bill comes in at $27.7 billion, or 3.3 percent more than the 2024 defense appropriations bill. The House version of this year’s defense budget bill, by comparison, comes in at $8.6 billion more than last year, a 1 percent increase.
The Senate bill could tee up a budget fight between the House. Congress agreed to adopt spending caps to limit budget growth as part of a deal to raise the U.S. debt limit under the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act. While the House version of the bill sticks to these budget caps, the Senate Appropriations Committee moved to exceed the budget caps under emergency justifications.
At a May 8 hearing, Tester acknowledged the Biden administration’s defense budget request only called for a 1 percent increase, in line with the Fiscal Responsibility Act. Still, he and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) pressed for a bigger budget increase.
“The ranking member Collins and myself think we need a bigger number,” Tester said at the time.
The Montana Democrat said the various military services and combatant commands had identified more than $20 billion in unfunded defense requirements. Collins, in turn, argued the president’s budget proposal wouldn’t keep pace with inflation.
“The 1 percent increase in funding provided for FY25 under the caps is as inadequate for non-defense spending as it is for the Department of Defense,” Murray said during that same May hearing.
On July 11, Murray announced she and Collins had reached a deal to allocate an extra $21 billion in defense spending and another $13.5 billion in non-defense spending under emergency authorities.
It remains to be seen how the House reacts to the Senate’s proposal. The 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act passed with bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, but it also saw bipartisan opposition. Many members of the fiscally conservative House Freedom Caucus opposed the 2023 deal, with the voting bloc arguing it didn’t do enough to limit spending and counteract the ballooning U.S. national debt.
The House Freedom Caucus has yet to comment publicly on the Senate’s defense budget bill. The Epoch Times reached out to Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), who chairs the House Freedom Caucus, for comment but did not receive a response by press time.
The U.S. national debt officially surpassed $35 trillion last week.
From The Epoch Times