House appropriators OK rebukes to recent DOD scandals in budget bill
House Republican appropriators agreed Thursday to several checks on recent controversial Pentagon moves in their $832 billion defense budget plan for fiscal 2026, including a ban on using any money for military personnel to conduct law enforcement duties on U.S. soil.
But the spending plan still drew significant criticism from Democratic lawmakers who objected to restrictions on abortion care for troops, insufficient funds to support Ukraine and missing budget justifications from the administration on how hundreds of billions of dollars will be spent.
The funding bill — which heads to the full chamber for consideration later this summer — includes a 3.8% pay raise for troops in 2026 and plans to trim 45,000 civilian employees from the department's workforce in a cost-cutting move.
Administration officials have billed it as the first $1 trillion defense budget, pairing the appropriations request with an expected $150 billion funding boost for military programs in the Republican-backed reconciliation package winding through Congress. Without that money, the defense budget would see no increase from fiscal 2025 levels.
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In a statement Thursday, Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., chairman of the appropriations committee's defense panel, praised the funding plan as 'investing significantly in modernization of the force, maintaining U.S. maritime and air dominance, fostering both innovation and the production capacity it relies upon, air and missile defense, and support for service members and their families.'
But he also acknowledged Democratic complaints about incomplete funding requests from the administration, and said he hopes those information gaps will be filled in coming weeks.
The committee approved the bill largely along party lines (only one Democrat, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, voted for it) after more than eight hours of debate and delays, with numerous Democratic amendments rejected by the GOP majority.
But Republicans did go along with several provisions touching on recent department controversies.
Language offered by Rep. Mike Levin, D-Calif., and approved by the committee would block the use of funds to skirt the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of military personnel for civilian law enforcement.
The provision came in response to the Trump administration's recent decision to deploy National Guard troops and active-duty Marines to Los Angeles to help with immigration enforcement efforts, over the objections of city and state officials.
Calvert and other Republicans backed the measure without offering any direct criticism of President Donald Trump's decision.
The committee also approved a Democratic-led amendment to block defense officials from sharing classified information on unsecured networks, a measure aimed at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's use of the privately-owned Signal app earlier this year to discuss overseas airstrikes with senior administration leaders.
And the legislation calls for a full accounting of money spent on the Army' 250th anniversary celebrations, scheduled for this weekend. The event — which coincides with Trump's 79th birthday — has seen its size and scope balloon by tens of millions of dollars as White House officials have mandated a larger and larger celebration.
Other Democratic-led proposals on restricting Trump's use of a Qatari plane as the new Air Force One, blocking the renaming of Navy ships and returning to previous policies allowing travel stipends to help pay for abortion-related care were all rejected.
Republicans also included language in the final bill which would block any diversity and inclusion programming at the Defense Department and severely limit health care options for transgender troops or family members, both priorities of the administration.
Earlier this week, Senate Republicans expressed stronger concerns about the missing budget information, but said they hope to move soon on their own version of the defense spending package. Both chambers will have to adopt their own drafts of the appropriations measures before negotiating a final budget compromise to be sent to the president to become law.
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