Washington: House lawmakers advanced their $832 billion defence appropriations plan for fiscal 2026 despite strong objections from Democrats over missing budgetary details and social issue fights.
The bill’s passage — by a 221-209 margin, with only five Democrats backing the measure — sends the national security budget debate over to the Senate, where appropriators still have not unveiled the parameters of their spending plans for next year.
The Defence Department is currently operating this fiscal year under a modified continuing resolution, with some additional funding for military programs and purchases. Lawmakers are hopeful that won’t happen again next year, but the slow pace of budget work thus far leaves only about six weeks of session work left before a possible partial government shutdown if the appropriations bills aren’t finalised.
The House spending plan was largely drafted before Pentagon leaders unveiled their detailed budgetary requests for fiscal 2026 just last month. President Donald Trump has touted that outline as a “$1 trillion defence budget,” but that total includes additional one-time funds approved by Congress as part of a separate reconciliation measure.
Republicans inserted language restricting military actions on US soil and blocking unsecure communications among senior officials in their 2026 budget.
As such, the House plan for the base defence budget represents a small decrease over current fiscal year military spending, a point that Democrats and some Republican lawmakers have lamented.
But Rep. Ken Calvert, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee’s defence panel, praised the funding plan as “providing our men and women in uniform with the resources they need to keep America safe.”
The bill supports a 3.8% pay raise for service members next year, matching the federal formula for the annual prescribed pay boost. It includes $2.6 billion for hypersonics programs and $13 billion for missile defence programs in support of Trump’s Golden Dome effort.
The measure sets aside $8.5 billion for 69 F-35 fighters, $3.8 billion for B-21 procurement, $2.7 billion for 15 KC-46s and $1.2 billion for four E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft. Another $37 billion would go to Navy shipbuilding efforts, including procurement of one Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine and two Virginia-class fast attack submarines.
Under the plan, the Defence Department civilian workforce would be cut by about 45,000 individuals at a savings of $3.6 billion, a provision that drew strong objections from Democratic lawmakers.
Critics also attacked the bill’s social issue provisions, including language prohibiting military health care facilities from providing abortion services, bans on transgender medical care and surgeries, and elimination of diversity and equity programs.
“These poison pill riders will not go unnoticed by our troops,” said Rep. Betty McCollum, ranking member on the appropriations committee’s defence panel. “They will impact recruitment and retention.”
Passage of the defence budget bill was delayed for much of the week by unrelated legislative floor fights in the House, and could be complicated in the Senate by similar, broader fights over federal spending and programme cuts.
House lawmakers are expected to shift focus in coming days to the annual defence authorisation bill — legislation which sets Defence Department policy and spending priorities for the upcoming year, but does not actually appropriate the funds for those goals — but a full floor debate on that measure is unlikely to happen before the chamber’s August recess.
