Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., tore into OMB for the Trump budget. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images.)
The Trump OMB's "skinny budget," released on Friday, proposes cuts to non-defense funding by $163 billion but increases defense funding from $893 billion to $1.01 trillion – a 13% increase. That includes $892.6 billion in discretionary spending, but will be supplemented by $119.3 billion in mandatory spending that is expected to be passed in the upcoming reconciliation bill.
Senior officials told Fox News the Trump administration needed to get creative to get a $1 trillion-plus budget over the finish line: Republican majorities have historically been forced to offer one-to-one increases in non-defense spending to secure increases in defense spending.
However, by keeping discretionary defense spending at $892.6 billion, the same level as fiscal year 2025, the budget that would be presented to Democrats would essentially reflect an unchanged defense discretionary budget with a smaller non-defense discretionary budget of about $557 billion – a 22.6% decrease.
The White House and congressional Republicans would then pursue the reset of the defense spending through the budget reconciliation process that is linked to the tax cut package.
Hegseth has yet to weigh in on OMB's defense spending proposal. ( (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images))
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Congress will have to hammer out its own budget plan - which could take months - with the White House's framework as a suggestion.
Wicker has long aimed to grow U.S. defense spending to 5% of the GDP, up from around 3.5 percent.
The Mississippi senator suggested he would ignore the OMB guidelines and work to achieve "real growth" within the defense budget.
Fox Business' Edward Lawrence and Eric Revell contributed to this report.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/top-senate-armed-services-republican-says-trump-ombs-budget-shreds-bone-military-capabilities