Senior House Armed Services Committee Democrat: Trump's troop numbers are inflated

Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the top-ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, is criticizing the Trump administration's fiscal year 2018 defense budget for saying it would increase the size of the military by 56,000 servicemembers, when, in fact, Congress already authorized the bulk of the requested increase last year.

"In keeping with President Trump's habit of exaggeration, he has been telling Congress and journalists that his budget increases the size of the military by 56,000 servicemembers,” Smith said in a May 30 statement. "This is a ruse, because it doesn't take into account the 24,000 active duty and 13,000 reservists that Congress added in last year's enacted [FY-17 National Defense Authorization Act].

Smith said it is more accurate to frame the Trump administration's requested increase as 8,000 for active-duty and 2,700 reservists.

The enacted active-duty troop level in FY-17 was 1,305,900, while the requested level for FY-18 is 1,314,000. The enacted FY-17 reserve  total was 813,200, while the requested FY-18 level was 815,900.

"This trend toward the use of misleading numbers in defense accounting is not a good thing," Smith said.