Lawmakers bristle after OMB confirms incoming inflated OCO budget request

By Justin Katz / February 28, 2019 at 1:12 PM

Lawmakers are denouncing plans by the Trump administration to submit an inflated Overseas Contingency Operations budget as a "gimmick."

"I think fundamentally when we're playing gimmicks with our budget -- putting money in OCO that belongs in base defense -- we're just not being honest with ourselves," Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) said yesterday during a moderated discussion at the Hudson Institute.

"The services come to us every single year and say don't put fundamental investments we should be making in the future of the force in OCO because . . . we can't predict whether the money will even be there next year, so we can't do any long-term planning," he continued.

Moulton's committee assignments include both the House Armed Services Committee and the Budget Committee giving him influence on both military policy and funding.

Inside Defense first reported earlier this month the administration will send an OCO budget of $174 billion as a way to circumvent the defense spending caps put in place by the 2011 Budget Control Act. The OCO fund, currently $69 billion, is exempt from those statutory caps.

House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-KY) and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) issued a statement earlier this week denouncing the plan after an Office of Management and Budget official penned an op-ed that effectively confirmed the administration's plans for a large OCO budget without stating a dollar figure.

"This is nothing more than a blatant attempt to make a mockery of the federal budget process, obscure the true cost of military operations, and severely shortchange other investments vital to our national and economic security," they said Monday in a joint statement.

Separately, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said today at the American Enterprise Institute the tactic would "create enormous problems."

"That’s like an order of magnitude change in the amount of OCO we had" last year, he said, referring to the $174 billion figure. "It's going to make it harder to get a bipartisan budget deal done."

Additional reporting by Mallory Shelbourne.

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