House Panel Proposes $20 Billion Shift to Buy More F-35s

The House Appropriations defense subcommittee has proposed shifting $20 billion from what it considers poorly justified funding requests in order to prevent two amphibious assault ships from being retired and increase the Air Force’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter fleet, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

The proposal, which adheres to spending caps under the debt-limit law, is the first confrontation between Republicans and Democrats in what is likely to be a series of battles in Congress over national security spending and different priorities for the two parties.

The GOP-majority House version must be reconciled with the Democrat-controlled Senate bill, which has not yet been announced.

“We have $20 billion of money we are rearranging and putting that into priorities to make this a better and stronger force,” said subcommittee Chairman Ken Calvert, R-Calif.

One of the subcommittee’s biggest efficiencies would permit the Pentagon to enter into five-year contracts for five of the seven requested munitions programs, but it denied the military the ability to place bulk orders in the early years of the contracts for components. Forgoing the block buys would save $1.9 billion that can be shifted to other programs.

The proposal requires the armed services to annually ask for the specific dollars used to purchase components, a requirement which is meant to bolster congressional oversight.

But during a period in which the U.S. is the linchpin for security assistance to Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion, and at the same time the U.S. readies for competition and conflict with China in the Pacific region, House Democrats have criticized the GOP strategy as a failure to “counter Chinese Communist Party threats.”

The GOP-led subcommittee also wants to save $1.1 billion by cutting the Defense Department’s civilian workforce through both an annual 10% attrition of personnel and by using automation and artificial intelligence to modernize operations and require fewer employees.

“We need to reform, disrupt the department — almost throughout the private sector, you see people using their workforce more effectively and more efficiently,” Calvert said. “We are not talking about firing anybody. The civilian personnel levels are at the highest level, proportionally to the military, than they have ever been.”