The House rapidly concluded its work on the 2025 authorization and appropriation bills in June. Now, it’s the Senate’s turn.

While the House kept to the Fiscal Responsibility Act budget caps that matched the funding levels proposed by the White House, the Senate is proposing increases for defense of between $23 billion (appropriators) and $38 billion (authorizers), including funds for military construction. The increase proposed by the Senate authorizers would keep defense spending roughly constant with inflation and set up a crucial discussion with the House about the future trajectory of military capability.

While the Senate appropriators have only released their top line numbers for defense and non-defense spending at this point, the Senate authorizers have produced details that describe program increases and decreases under the higher top line. 

First, $12.5 billion of the proposed authorized increase is for Military Construction Disaster Recovery for the Navy, Air Force, and Marines. Given that there has not been a recent disaster with losses that high, this is really a massive construction buildout in Guam and on the Marianas Islands. This authorized emergency spending, which makes it exempt from the budget caps, is on top of $3.1 billion in additional military construction funded in the bill, for a total of $15.6 billion. A large piece of that increase, $2 billion, goes to the Navy. 

Second, the procurement accounts receive nearly $10 billion (25 percent) of the $38 billion increase, making it clear that Senate authorizers do not agree with the Pentagon’s divest-to-invest strategy and recognize the critical role actually buying military capability plays in producing a strong military and rebuilding the industrial base. The largest increase is within Navy Shipbuilding, with an additional $4.2 billion, which includes a third DDG Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, a second Virginia-class submarine, and completes the LPD multiyear procurement. Next are the Air Force aircraft and missile accounts which receive increases of $2.1 billion and $1.1 billion, respectively. Of particular interest are adds for six more F-15EX (+$690 million), 260 more JASSM missiles (+$336 million), and 35 more LRASM missiles with industrial base support (+$250 million). Finally, the Army would receive an increase of $942 million for 70 additional PrSM missiles with funding to further expand capacity (+$264 million), an additional PATRIOT launcher (+$167 million), and 460 more JAGM missiles (+$115 million).

Third, the readiness accounts (operation and maintenance), are up $8.9 billion, which is about a 3 percent increase over the request. Within the increase, the Air Force is the big winner, with an additional $3.4 billion of which $1.8 billion is for facilities maintenance, including $680 million for Guam. The Air Force would also receive $752 million more for flying hours and $266 million for a Pacific Air Force training exercise. Next, the defense-wide account gets an additional $1.9 billion, of which $1.3 billion is for bulk fuel purchases and $400 million replenishes defense stocks for the Taiwan drawdown. The Navy is allocated an additional $1.4 billion of which $1 billion is for facilities maintenance including $370 million for Guam. The Army would receive $1.2 billion and the Marine Corps about $940 million, both mostly for Pacific readiness and facilities maintenance, sending a consistent theme regarding the pacing threat of China.

Fourth, the research and development accounts would receive an additional $2.8 billion, with the Air Force actually losing compared to the request, taking a $240 million reduction to the Survivable Airborne Operations Center and a $400 million cut to the VC-25B program. The largest increase goes to defense-wide, totaling $1.4 billion with Hypersonic Defense up $393 million and $65 million more for High Energy Lasers.  

Lastly, the military personnel pay accounts are up $420 million which includes $1 billion for a junior enlisted pay increase and a cut of $737 million for unobligated balances. Pay will be a notable discussion during conference with the House which provided an increase of more than 19.5 percent compared to the Senate’s smaller 5.5 percent increase.

With detailed funding and policy direction from three of the four committees now available, three points are worth noting. First, there is a near-zero percent chance in this election year that the bills will be enacted prior to the end of the fiscal year; therefore, the Pentagon will start the year, again, under a continuing resolution. Second, there is key policy divergence between a 5.5 percent and 19.5 percent pay raise for junior enlisted personnel that will need to be resolved. And, third, there is a big difference between the Fiscal Responsibility Act caps and the Senate-proposed levels for defense that can be measured in more than just dollars in protecting and defending the nation.

Unfortunately, the resolution to these and many other issues will likely be put on hold until sometime after November.

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