Opinion — “This leads me to a concern I want to put on the record. In addition to the billions requested for the F-35 (fighter-bomber) enterprise, many of these programs I consider top priorities, they are being funded through the mandatory (reconciliation bill) request – $17.5 billion for the Golden Dome (anti-missile system), $7.7 billion for the Air Moving-Target Indicator, munition equipment $4.6 billion for equipment and $3.9 billion for space data networks. Mandatory funding (through the reconciliation bill) bypasses the annual appropriations process, allowing Congress to exercise its oversight responsibility. If these programs are as important as the (fiscal 2027) budget request, and I believe they are, they deserve the full scrutiny and continued attention we provide to the appropriations process.
He was the representative Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), Chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, called upon to discuss the fiscal 2027 budget for the U.S. Air Force (USAF) and Space Force (USSF) during his opening statement at an April 30 hearing.
I am focusing on this Appropriations Subcommittee hearing for two reasons.
The first reason is that the session was cut short after 53 minutes so that members could participate in the floor vote in the House, but then the hearing did not resume. When the hearing adjourned, only seven of the 13 subcommittee members present had five minutes to ask questions, although they were eventually given the opportunity to submit questions in written form.
This was another example of the House subcommittee not performing its assigned constitutional role, but a questionable remedy exists that I will discuss below.
Equally important, as Calvert noted above, the Trump administration is messing with the normal defense budget process, which the House and Senate let them do last year when Congress passed an $839 billion FY 2026 defense appropriations bill, but then added another $152 billion for defense in the so-called “one, big, beautiful” reconciliation bill.
This year, as part of the Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion request to fund the Department of Defense (DOD) next year, the Pentagon plans $1.15 trillion within the base budget, with an additional $350 billion coming from the proposed second-round reconciliation bill.
By putting that $350 billion into a subsequent reconciliation bill, the administration wants to avoid the 60 vote requirement for passage in the Senate, which would require regular legislation, but the reconciliation bill requires only a majority vote.
The same day, April 30, in the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Angus King (I-Maine) raised the idea of reconciliation with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who was testifying about the fiscal 2027 DOD budget.
King asked Hegseth, “Why do we suddenly have a two-part (DOD) budget, where this committee and Congress normally have oversight and input into that process, where a quarter of the (DOD) budget (the share in the reconciliation bill) is essentially a dirty fund?”
Hegseth responded, “I wouldn’t characterize a quarter of it as a slush fund, but I think we look at it overall as a $1.5 trillion budget sequestration.” Hegseth then unsuccessfully tried to explain, “Why two pieces… why so many vehicles, but we are fully committed to working with the Committee to ensure that the right vehicles are used to receive this $1.5 trillion.”
Meanwhile, members of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee have another opportunity today to ask questions about the DoD fiscal 2027 budget when Hegseth, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Kane and Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) Jules W. Hurst III appear before them to review the $1.5 trillion DoD budget request.
However, there will be time constraints.
It turns out that the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee is also scheduled to hold its hearing today, May 12, with the same witnesses. The House subcommittee hearing is scheduled for 8 a.m. today in a room in the Rayburn House office building. The Senate group is scheduled to meet beginning at 10:30 a.m. in a room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on the other side of Capitol Hill.
I must point out that at most, members of the House Defense Subcommittee will have less than 90 minutes for questions, and if all 18 members come, not everyone will get the allotted five minutes to ask anything. This is not a meaningful observation.
Remember the 53-minute House Defense Subcommittee meeting in which only seven questions were asked? They were working with an Air Force fiscal 2027 budget of just $339 billion, a 38 percent increase from this year. The same members today will try to cover questions about the $1.5 trillion DoD budget, which is 40 percent larger than the current budget.
After reading all the testimony at that April 30 brief session on the FY 2027 Air Force budget, I think the public needs to know more about the sixth-generation F-47, which will be the world’s most stealthy and lethal fighter aircraft in the future. Last year, Boeing won a $20 billion contract to build 185 of them. Their speed will exceed Mach 2, which is twice the speed of sound and faster than 1,500 mph with a combat range of 1,000 nautical miles.
The F-47s are also designed in such a way that their pilots will be in-the-air directors of eight unmanned AI-powered drones, designated Air Force Cooperative Combat Aircraft (CCA). According to the Air Force Secretary Dr. Troy E. Meinke told the subcommittee on April 30, the F-47 “And its integration with autonomous CCAs represents a generational leap in combat capability that will redefine the battle-space.
“We are allocating more than $5 billion for F-47 engineering and manufacturing development in fiscal year 2027. The USAF is investing $1.4 billion for CCA test and development, which puts us on a direct path to procure more than 150 CCAs by the end of the (five-year) Future Years Defense Program, rapidly increasing our combat mass,” Meinke said.
How is all this progressing?
But a question that needs to be asked at today’s hearing with Hegseth is why split the $1.5 trillion budget in the first place?
At the end of a brief House subcommittee hearing on April 30, Representative Joe Morrell (D-N.Y.) asked Air Force Secretary Meenak whether the division of the DOD budget is “a one-year anomaly, or does the Department plan to continue transferring defense funds to mandated accounts (reconciliation bill) going forward, which will give this committee (House Appropriations) much less oversight over defense spending.”
Mink was the first to say, “We’re always happy to come along and explain to you how we’re spending resources in a completely transparent manner, whether it’s in reconciliation or in the base budget.”
When Morelle continued to insist and asked about the “years gone by,” Mink responded, “I can’t speak to the level of negotiations or the (Trump administration) Congressman’s strategy going forward.”
To which Morell said, “Let me just say this, and then I’ll come back… I think it’s a dangerous precedent. I think Article One (of the Constitution that established Congress) responsibilities and the role that is vested in this committee to provide oversight – I’m a new member (of the subcommittee) – but I think it’s really important, not only for the integrity of Congress and for the responsibilities and privileges of Congress to the American people.”
I agree.
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