Smith backs defense policy bill, but sees 'reckoning' coming

Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, supported advancing the fiscal year 2017 defense authorization bill out of committee late last night, but he put out a statement this afternoon predicting a fiscal "reckoning" for the bill because of its intent to shift $18 billion of overseas contingency operations funding to the Pentagon's base budget.

"If we continue down the route that this bill goes down, which has the OCO running out about halfway through the year, we are counting on a supplemental," he said. "If this is the environment versus the environment before, it is a much, much more risky proposition."

The bill would authorize roughly $523 billion for the Defense Department's base budget and $58.8 billion for the OCO account. However, the bill would allow $18 billion from OCO to be spent on base budget priorities, along $5 billion in OCO-to-base spending that was allowed by the Bipartisan Budget Act. That would leave the OCO budget -- the primary account used for financing the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant -- with $36 billion, or only enough funding until April 2017. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-TX) said a new presidential administration would have the option to inject emergency supplemental spending into the OCO account to continue the fight against ISIL.

Smith, who told Inside Defense on April 22 he was "leaning toward" supporting the bill, ultimately voted in favor of advancing it to the full House.

However, Smith said in his Thursday statement that he remains concerned that Congress continues to avoid dealing with the bigger fiscal issue -- ending the 2011 Budget Control Act, which forces lawmakers to shoehorn government spending into last-minute congressional deals.

"I'm not going to leap up and say where we should cut $18 billion out of the base either," he said. "I have a few ideas, though I don't know if I have $18 billion worth of ideas. But at some point we are going to have to live within our means -- the means that we've decided to provide. I would love to see the Budget Control Act go away tomorrow, but if it doesn't we are going to have some very difficult decisions. We have artfully put those off, but I think every member needs to prepare for how to approach that reckoning when it comes. That continues to be my concern about the underlying bill."