House funding bill for U.S. military exceeds Trump's request
House Republicans are proposing that the Pentagon receive more than $584 billion in discretionary funding for 2018, more than $18 billion above President Trump's request, according to a summary provided by the House Appropriations Committee.
The House Appropriations Defense subcommittee approved the measure Monday evening, advancing it to the full committee. The funding covers the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.
The bill appears to assume that Congress will raise spending caps set by a 2011 law before lawmakers approve a 2018 funding package. If Congress doesn't pass another bipartisan budget deal raising those spending limits, the defense spending cap for 2018 is $549 billion.
For overseas military operations such as those against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the bill would provide $73.9 billion for the overseas contingency operations (OCO) fund and the Global War on Terrorism fund. A summary of the measure said that the OCO funding also "provides critical support to our key allies, such as Israel, Ukraine and Jordan, to resist aggression."
The legislation covers funding for military personnel and pay, operations and maintenance projects, research and development and equipment procurement. The bill would provide funding for the Pentagon to acquire 11 Navy ships, two guided missile destroyers, 56 Black Hawk helicopter and 12 unmanned aerial vehicles, among other things.
It would provide $282 million for cancer research, $125 million for research on traumatic brain injury and psychological health and $277 million for efforts to prevent and respond to sexual assaults.
President Trump's 2018 budget blueprint from May requested that Congress increase defense spending for 2018 by $54 billion and call for the same amount in cuts to non-defense domestic programs.
