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Congress has raised concerns about big program changes across the services, including the Army’s future with its AH-64 Apache.
In what has proved to be an unconventional year in Washington, the Trump administration is continuing that trend with an unconventional approach to outlining its spending plans for the Pentagon.
Traditionally, an administration submits its budget proposal to Congress in early February. But the Trump administration has largely disregarded that process and has instead delivered partial spending proposals in June, prompting committees to start their work without a full blueprint. The contents of these proposals have created discord within the Republican majority and among the military services.
- Markups begin without full spending proposals
- Committee seeks to restore funding for some programs that the U.S. Army intended to cut
“What we have in front of us is an inadequate budget request with precious little detail and no follow-on data,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a defense spending hawk, said during a June 18 hearing.
The Trump administration is calling for $831.5 billion in base discretionary Pentagon spending, the same amount that was authorized for fiscal 2025. However, the Pentagon and an insistent Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth say the department is planning to spend almost $1 trillion in fiscal 2026—a “generational investment.” That number takes into account the $150 billion for defense spending in a broad reconciliation package that is included in President Donald Trump’s touted “One Big Beautiful Bill”; the Senate was still considering the bill in mid-June. This plan takes almost 15% of Pentagon spending and moves it to a separate bill that has been highly politicized instead of following the typical bipartisan defense spending process.
Beyond fiscal 2026, Wicker said the White House Office of Management and Budget intends to maintain defense spending at the current level over the next four years.
“Across the budget, we see significant holes,” Wicker warned. “Shipbuilding, tactical fighters, basic maintenance money and more. All insufficient.”
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said on June 18 that the Pentagon plan is returning to a method that was roundly criticized in Congress following the Global War on Terror begun by President George W. Bush in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. After the passage of 2011’s Budget Control Act, the Pentagon increasingly used the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account—a separate funding line specifically for war operations—to cover base spending, a budget trick to increase spending on traditional programs through a supplemental appropriation that had been intended to be used once. The approach was phased out under President Joe Biden in 2021.
“I don’t understand why we can’t have an honest, straightforward budget instead of this son of OCO that you’re putting over on us,” King told Hegseth.
What has emerged within the Pentagon’s request is an increase to $142 billion in research, development, test and evaluation along with $205 billion for procurement. The detailed breakdown remains pending until the justifications are released.
Throughout a series of force posture hearings in May and June, rifts have emerged between service planning and Defense Department priorities. One of the most notable clashes is about the U.S. Navy’s F/A-XX fighter: Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. James Kilby, among other officials, has testified that the aircraft is needed for the service’s future carrier air wing. The Navy is substantially cutting F/A-XX research spending to $75 million, despite congressional pushes to increase spending.
In the U.S. Air Force, a debate has emerged about the future of Boeing’s E-7A Wedgetail airborne early-warning and control aircraft. The service has made fielding the E-7A a priority, funding two rapid prototypes and requesting more money in recent years through unfunded priorities lists.
However, the Pentagon is expected to cut the program in fiscal 2026 and shift funding to a joint-operated fleet of Northrop Grumman E-2D Hawkeyes to field ground- and air-moving target indication capabilities in space for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions.
Hegseth, in a June 10 House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense hearing, said: “We believe most of the ISR, or a great deal of ISR, in the future will be space-based,” and cutting the E-7 is an example of a “tough call” that needs to be made to fund other priorities.
Air Force leaders have testified, however, that the E-7 should continue because those space-based capabilities are not ready. In a May 6 hearing to the same committee, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said the service needs to ensure that it does not create a gap as it looks toward the future of space-based ISR and that the Wedgetail is the answer. Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman added that a “mix of systems” is necessary for the role.
In a June 10 hearing, Allvin also pointed to hypersonic weapons procurement as a potential difference between the service’s proposal and what is in the final budget. The Air Force intends to add procurement funding for the Lockheed Martin AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon following doubts about the program in recent years. This is in addition to the smaller Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile that the service also intends to field.
“I will tell you that we are developing—and you’ll see in the budget submission, assuming it’s what we put forward—two different programs,” Allvin told the House Armed Services Committee.
Because the budget submission was so late, committees are beginning their markups without full details from the Pentagon. The House Appropriations Committee was the first out of the gate, approving its fiscal 2026 spending bill on June 12. The $832 billion measure is close to the proposed top line but breaks with administration priorities; for example, the committee is suggesting $13 billion for Trump’s proposed Golden Dome missile defense shield—$12 billion less than the White House estimate. The committee recommends increasing purchases of Lockheed Martin F-35s to 69 total, along with adding $500 million for the E-7A Wedgetail and $972 million for the F/A-XX with the explicit instruction to speed up the F/A-XX program.
The committee seeks to overturn several planned U.S. Army cuts, restoring funding to programs that the service had planned to eliminate. These projects include the Improved Turbine Engine Program, which would replace powerplants in Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks and Boeing AH-64 Apaches with GE Aerospace T901s. The committee also supports purchasing additional General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagles and remanufactured AH-64E helicopters, both of which the Army had intended to cut.
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