According to a report at Politico, President Donald Trump's administration is likely to seek to tack on a request for an extra $174 billion in a budget proposal for the Pentagon that will be part of what some lawmakers -- on both sides of the aisle -- call a "slush fund."
The report states that Trump is trying to get around budget restraints without violating a 2011 law aimed at reining in the deficit.
"The White House plans to stuff as much as $174 billion of its $750 billion request for national defense for the coming fiscal year into a special war fund," Politico reports, adding that "[h]is plan would evade federal budget limits by stashing nearly a quarter of that money in an off-the-books account."
The president is expected to make the proposal despite the fact that members of his own party are furious that his proposal will bust the budget.
"It's ridiculous if that's what they do,” suggested Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) who sits on the House Armed Services Committee.
House Budget Chairman John Yarmuth (D-KY) has a harsher assessment on the chances of Trump's proposal getting a thumbs up from the committee, telling Politico, "It's definitely a non-starter. It would be an insult to the process to do that.”
According to the report, "Lawmakers in both parties object to relying so heavily on what budget hawks have long derided as a Pentagon slush fund. Unless both parties can negotiate a deal to lift the spending caps, it could mean a quick demise for the military's ambitious investment plans, which got a two-year boost last year under a bipartisan deal that raised spending for the military as well as other government agencies."
"Under the plan, the Pentagon would request $576 billion for its main budget, equal to the spending cap, along with up to $174 billion in spending for the Overseas Contingency Operations fund — for a total of $750 billion," the report claims. "Since the war account is exempt from limits set by the 2011 budget law, it has been a battleground in annual fights over defense spending. Though meant to fund wartime needs and unforeseen national security contingencies — like the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria — the account has been used to skirt spending caps and fund enduring programs with little connection to U.S. war efforts."
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