Furious Graham rips House GOP for agreeing to defense cut, demands assurances on future spending
Fox News
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., blew up at House Republicans on Wednesday for approving a debt ceiling deal with Democrats on Wednesday that failed to increase defense spending enough to account for inflation.
“To my House colleagues, I can’t believe you did this,” Graham said on the Senate floor. “To the Speaker, I know you’ve got a tough job. I like you. But the party of Ronald Reagan is dying. Don’t tell me that a defense budget that’s $42 billion below inflation fully funds to military.”
Graham threatened to block the Senate from fast-tracking a vote on the bipartisan deal under assurances are given that defense spending can be increased. Graham and several other senators raised similar concerns on the chamber floor on Thursday, just after the bill passed the House of Representatives in a bipartisan 314-177 vote the prior night.
“We’ll be here til Tuesday until I get commitments that we’re going to rectify some of these problems,” the senator added.
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has pledged to move the bill through his chamber as quickly as possible to avoid a potential financial crisis if the U.S. government runs out of cash to pay all of its obligations on June 5. Speeding up the normal procedure would require unanimous consent from all 100 senators.
But Graham made it clear he would try to slow down the process.
“Our military is weakening by the day. This budget that we’re about to pass makes every problem worse. I want to end the war in Ukraine by defeating Putin. If you don’t, he keeps going. And we’re going to have a conflict between NATO and Russia, and our troops will be involved if you don’t send a clear signal now. China will see this as an opportunity to leap into Taiwan,” Graham said.
“So to the members of this body, we’re staying here as long as it takes to get some commitment that we’re gonna reverse this debacle sooner rather than later,” he said.
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Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., introduced an amendment aimed at bolstering defense funding in the debt limit bill. He also criticized the allocated military budget in his own remarks on the Senate floor.
“The budget shouldn’t shape our defense needs,” Cotton said. “Our defense needs have to shape our budget.”
Others, like Sens. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., and Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, made the same arguments on the Senate floor. They’re all calling for assurances from President Biden and Senate leadership that supplemental military funding will be approved.
Under the current deal struck between Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., nondefense discretionary spending would see a slight cut from current levels, while defense funding is increased by roughly 3%, below the current level of inflation.