HASC Chair Calls on Next Administration to Make Its Own 2017 Request

Even before the Fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act is voted on, and two months before inauguration day, some lawmakers are hoping the next administration files a supplemental budget request. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) said Wednesday he hopes President-elect Donald Trump submits a supplemental request focusing on programs that were not fully funded in the 2017 authorization bill. The House and Senate Armed Services Committees on Wednesday laid out their compromise language for the bill, which includes a pay raise but no increases for programs such as the F-35. Thornberry said it was “disappointing” that in order to finalize the compromise, lawmakers could not include funding levels the House was seeking in its version. The next administration could use a supplemental request to “make up some of that ground,” Thornberry said at a Foreign Policy Initiative event in Washington, D.C.