Thornberry, Turner call for more defense spending following Trump’s defense budget plan

U.S. Reps. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) and Mike Turner (R-OH) raised concerns after the Trump administration announced plans to propose a $603 billion budget for defense.

Thornberry, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and Turner, the chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces, agree that a defense budget of $640 billion is needed for fiscal year 2018 to rebuild the military.

Thornberry noted that military funding was cut by 20 percent during the Obama administration while “the world grew more dangerous.”

“While we cannot repair all of the damage done by those cuts in a single year, we can and should do more than this level of funding will allow,” Thornberry said. “The administration will have to make clear which problems facing our military they are choosing not to fix. We cannot make repairing and rebuilding our military conditional on fixing our budget problems or on cutting other spending. We owe it to the men and women who serve and to the American people to protect our nation’s security under all circumstances.”

U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the proposed $603 billion in defense spending would be $18.5 billion more than Obama proposed for fiscal year 2018.

“In other words, President Trump intends to submit a defense budget that is a mere 3 percent above President Obama’s defense budget, which has left our military underfunded, undersized and unready to confront threats to our national security,” McCain said.

Turner called claims about the defense spending increase “fake budgeting.”

“The new administration claiming a 10 percent increase that’s really a 3 percent increase is fake budgeting,” Turner said. “Our military’s readiness has suffered immensely over the past eight years due to stringent budget cuts. It is imperative we make a real attempt to reverse dangerous trends in defense spending. I hope the administration will be able to come to the negotiating table in a meaningful way to support our armed forces and to protect our interests at home and abroad.”