UPDATED: Republicans Abandon Spending Bills; McCain Says “Madness Needs To End”

WASHINGTON: The defense policy bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act, is the crowning glory of Congress when it comes to the most fundamental function of the federal government: providing for the common defense.

To that end, we understand a letter by Rep. Joe Wilson, chairman of the HASC emerging threats subcommittee, is circulating inside House GOP circles pressing Speaker Paul Ryan to keep the House in session until or unless the 2017 NDAA passes. Of course, while I hear many of the major issues between the House and Senate have been settled in conference, there remain a number of issues separating the two sides.

Rep. Joe Wilson

The House letter — which a senior congressional aide says “already has the support of all” the House Armed Services subcommittee chairmen —  notes that “the primary function of government is to provide for the common defense, and for 54 consecutive years, Congress has successfully acted to support the service members currently protecting American families around the world.” This is an argument that Sen. John McCain would embrace, as a fierce advocate of congressional authorizers, especially since he is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Why is the NDAA so important? While appropriators will doubtless grumble and note that they are the ones known as cardinals since they control how much money the Defense Department gets, the truth is that there is little disagreement about 95 percent or more of the defense budget in most years. That means appropriators nibble round the edges on most programs, while the authorizers make highly detailed spending restrictions about a wide array of programs and set policy. And it is strategy and policy that drive spending, not the other way round. Clever wags will assert that spending is strategy, but they ignore that how you use what you have often matters more than what you have. Good example? The Germans were the clever ducks who tied advance units, planes, tanks and trucks together with radios, thus giving rise to the still potent concept of blitzkrieg.

I hear there is a good chance the NDAA will pass before the House adjourns. The question is, when does the House adjourn!

UPDATE BEGINS: Meanwhile, Republicans in both houses decided this afternoon to give up passing spending bills for the year and use a Continuing Resolution to pay the government’s bills until March. Why? Basically, they want to give the Trump Administration time to scale up and prepare for the next year’s budget. From pervious experience, I’d assume this means we won’t get a fiscal 2018 budget proposal until May or June. It did not please McCain, who noted that a CR will “actually cut funds for our troops” and “place them at greater risk.”

He didn’t have kind words for his congressional colleagues. “For the eighth consecutive year, Congress has failed to pass an appropriations bill for the Department of Defense on time, leaving our troops operating on a so-called ‘continuing resolution,” he said on the Senate floor. “This madness needs to end. It is time for Congress to do its job. When it comes to doing our constitutional duty to provide for the common defense, there is no call for lazy shortcuts that shortchange our troops.”

“This is deeply disappointing. Once again, Republicans are stymying our ability to do our job and meet our constitutional responsibility to produce full year appropriations for the American people.  We have been working constructively for a year to do our job and write appropriations bills that meet our national security, economic growth and compelling human needs.

“We believe we can finish the job.  We do not want a government shutdown.  Our principles remain the same: parity between defense and non-defense, no poison pill riders and compliance with the Bipartisan Budget Act.

“My preference would be to do our job and work on an omnibus funding bill.  How we proceed from a parliamentary standpoint, whether it’s one whole bill or a series of minibuses, could be discussed.  We could do it.  Where there’s a will there’s a way.  Republicans instead have decided to procrastinate rather than legislate.”