There isn't much bipartisan governance left in Washington, but if anything still fits that description, it's probably the annual defense authorization act, which sets spending levels and policy for the Pentagon, and, therefore, usually brings Republicans and Democrats together in support of national security and the troops. On April 30, the Republican-led House Armed Services Committee approved a $600 billion-plus bill by a bipartisan vote of 60 to 2. Thursday, the Senate counterpart did the same, by a bipartisan vote of 22 to 4.
Now that the bill is headed to the full House, however, President Obama is threatening a veto and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi is urging her caucus to vote no. Mr. Obama and Ms. Pelosi's main objection is that the bill uses budgetary ledgerdemain to let the Pentagon escape sequestration budget caps, while other discretionary spending remains constrained by them.
We have some sympathy for that concern. The House Armed Services chairman, Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, topped up the measure to the $612 billion level Mr. Obama requested by labeling $38 billion in permanent funding as "overseas contingency" money--which is emergency spending not subject to budget caps. The Senate committee adopted the same ploy, which its chairman, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., previously derided as a gimmick, and which even Mr. Thornberry concedes is less than honest budgeting. Republicans, however, say they were forced into it because the White House demanded the politically impossible from them: namely, that a Republican Congress match any defense increases with boosts for domestic programs.
Now Republicans and Democrats accuse each other of taking the defense and domestic budgets hostage--and that's where our sympathy for the president's position ends. He's helped set this blame game in motion, when his role as commander-in-chief should cause him to rise above it. We agree that discretionary programs need more money, and that some of them, such as Homeland Security and the State Department, pay security dividends as well. Sequestration should be reversed. However, that's not politically realistic--as the votes for the GOP bill by so many Democrats in both the Senate and House armed services committees imply. When all is said and done, national defense is a clear constitutional responsibility of the federal government; fully funding it should take priority.
What we haven't really seen from the president is a clear and convincing explanation of how and where he would tailor U.S. security commitments to fit the smaller budget he is, in effect, threatening to accept. Far better for him, and his party's leadership in Congress, to help an adequate defense budget keep moving through Congress, rather than perpetuate a fight all Americans, whether Republican or Democrat, might later regret.
Editorial on 05/16/2015