Armed Services chairman warns against ‘low expectations’ ahead of Trump budget

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee is warning against “low expectations” ahead of the Trump administration’s budget rollout Tuesday.

President Trump will ask for a $603 billion base defense budget, well below what Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) and other defense hawks have advocated for.

Ahead of the budget’s official unveiling, Thornberry urged his colleagues not to start budget negotiations with a pessimistic mindset as he championed his higher proposal.

“As President Bush said in a different context, don’t be guilty of the soft bigotry of low expectations,” Thornberry said Monday at a Brookings Institution event. “Even some of my colleagues are saying, ‘OK, we’re in a for a yearlong [continuing resolution].’ If that’s our mindset, then we will bring it to pass.”

{mosads}The comments come after other Republican lawmakers have cast doubt on whether Thornberry’s proposal for a $640 billion base defense budget is achievable — or whether Congress will be able to pass spending bills at all this year.

Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), chairwoman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, said last week she doesn’t see how to get to $640 billion “unless something drops from heaven.”

“If all things were equal I’d agree with their number, but I don’t see how you get there,” Granger said at a Bloomberg Government event.

Meanwhile, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), chairman of the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee, was doubtful Republicans will find an agreement on spending among themselves, resulting in a yearlong continuing resolution (CR), something defense hawks detest.

“The rest of the appropriators and chairmen will probably kill me, but I think we’re into a CR for 2018,” Simpson told reporters last week.

Thornberry on Monday warned against such pessimism, as well as taking dollar amounts out of context from what military capabilities are needed.

“I worry if you start hedging your bets at the beginning, then where you end up is way down here somewhere, whereas the real need we lose sight of,” he said. “I think it’s important to say, ‘OK, if you want to do these things, this is what it takes.’ And if you’re not going to do that at that level, you got to be really clear and bear the responsibility for the things you are not doing, for the capabilities you will leave off, for the repairs you will not carry through.”

Thornberry was not yet willing to say whether the annual defense policy bill he shepherds as Armed Services chairman will follow his proposal or hew closer to Trump’s budget, insisting he hasn’t decided yet.

He likewise told reporters after the speech that he needs more time to look through Trump’s budget proposal to know specifically what’s not included that would be in the $640 billion budget. 

“That’ll take us a little time to say, ‘OK, this is an area where I think we should do more that is not in this request,’ ” he said.