Debt Ceiling Fight Puts Defense Budget in Limbo.

• Author: Carberry, Sean

This time of year, Congress is usually busy marking up the annual National Defense Authorization Act and mapping out the defense budget for the next fiscal year. However, just as the House Armed Services Committee was to begin work on the 2024 NDAA, Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., pumped the brakes.

The entirety of his May 9 statement on the pause read:

Providing for our nation's defense is the most important responsibility that Congress has been tasked with under the U.S. Constitution. I look forward to beginning the [2024] NDAA process in the near future to fulfill this critical responsibility and strengthen our national security.

The following day, GOP leaders said the markup was postponed so the House can focus on negotiating a deal to avoid a default when the federal government reaches the current debt ceiling, which at the time of writing was projected to be June 1.

"For now, we're going to wait and see how that process plays out before starting the NDAA," House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., told reporters May 10.

The process has been bound on one side by legislation the House passed by a two-vote margin on April 26. That bill would return discretionary spending to 2022 levels, plus 1 percent, in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion.

After the announcement of the NDAA markup postponement, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., issued a lengthy press release criticizing the delay of the markup.

"There is no way to make the substantial cuts to discretionary spending the Republican majority is vaguely proposing without doing great harm to the defense budget and the national security of this country," he said.

After a few more paragraphs excoriating House leadership for complaining that the president's defense budget request was inadequate while calling for major cuts in discretionary spending, he landed the plane.

"It is way past time to end these games," he said. "The debt ceiling must be raised, the budget discussion must be had in the normal budget authorization and appropriations processes and we must get back to the regular order of business and markup the defense bill in committee, pass it off the floor and begin negotiations with the Senate to once again pass this crucial piece of legislation."

That tone was echoed in a May 11 Senate Appropriations Committee defense subcommittee hearing on the Defense Department's $842 billion 2024 budget request--which is...