Budget/Appropriations

The lawmakers said they weren't given enough time to read the 500-page measure and had already found pork barrel spending.

The Topline: Legislation to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year — which the Pentagon is pleading for Congress to pass — ran into a new roadblock in the Senate Tuesday when two senators put a hold on the bill.

One of them was Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a staunch defender of robust defense spending.

McCain and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) placed the hold on the continuing resolution (CR) because they did not have time to read the 500-page bill and because they said it contained too much “pork-barrel spending.”

“What we have found is egregious pork-barrel spending,” McCain said. “I hope in next few hours we’ll be able to finish examining the bill, but what we’ve found is so egregious ... frankly, it’s beyond anything I have ever seen in my years in the United States Senate.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he was “stunned and flabbergasted” at the holds.

“I am somewhat amazed, stunned,” Reid said. “Just when you think it can't get worse, it gets worse.”

Congress has until March 27 to pass a government funding measure before the current CR expires.

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“Right now we’re just trying to get through this," Pentagon acquisitions chief Frank Kendall said Tuesday.

The nation’s top intelligence official told senators on Tuesday that automatic budget cuts from sequestration will make the country more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

“Sequestration forces the intelligence community to reduce all intelligence activities and functions without regard to impact our mission,” said Director on National Intelligence James Clapper in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“In my considered judgment as the nation's senior intelligence officer, sequestration jeopardizes our nation's safety and security. And this jeopardy will increase over time.”
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The House passed legislation last week to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year, and now it is the Senate’s turn.

The Senate Appropriations Committee plans to unveil its version of a continuing resolution (CR) on Monday, which would bring Congress one step closer to averting a government shutdown.

The Senate hopes to vote on the plan this week so that the House and Senate can negotiate a final CR before March 27.

Pentagon officials have informed lawmakers that the budget will arrive more than nine weeks late, on April 8. 

Their version will tack on three appropriations bills and give the Obama administration greater flexibility on sequestration.

The government funding measure that passed in the House on Wednesday included $348 million for the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS), but the money is not going to fund the program, appropriators say.

House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) said that the Appropriations bill follows the ban on funds for the missile defense program that were included in the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

MEADS has long been on the congressional chopping block, but in past years the Pentagon has been able to prevent attempts to kill the program, a joint missile defense venture between the United States, Italy and Germany.

The Obama administration has at times overstated the damage from the sequester, a senior House Democrat said Wednesday.

The White House and Pentagon have not yet released their 2014 budget, but the House and Senate Armed Services committees nevertheless kicked off their budget posture hearings on Tuesday with the military brass.

The commanders of U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command testified before the Senate panel Tuesday, while the heads of U.S. Pacific Command and U.S. Strategic Command were before the House committee.

There’s certainly plenty to talk about — the military leaders were asked detailed questions about the impacts of sequestration and the continuing resolution, they discussed threats facing the United States, and Gen. James Mattis gave his recommendation for U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan post-2014.

But for the initial hearings, the 2014 budget was not yet on the agenda.