Hard Choices on War Funding

David Super

      Two weeks into President Trump’s war of choice against Iran, discussion is increasing about the role Congress will play.  President Trump chose to ignore Congress’s constitutional power to declare war – one of the most intentional choices the Framers made.  But the costs of the war – exceeding $1 billion per day according to some estimates – will surely lead to requests for additional funding to replace expended munitions and restore numerous Pentagon accounts being spent out far more rapidly than anticipated. 

      With the war spectacularly unpopular, congressional Republican leaders are in no hurry to force their Members to vote for more funds.  Most Democrats, in turn, seem inclined to “just say ‘no’” to funding a war they oppose that was started without consulting them.  At some point soon, however, the Pentagon’s capacity to perform more popular responsibilities, such as deterring assaults on Taiwan or South Korea, will come into question.  This post examines the choices Democrats and Republicans will face at that point.

      The traditional approach is for the President to request a supplemental appropriation from Congress.  Supplemental appropriations often turn into “Christmas trees” with ornaments (additional funding) attached by both the Administration and congressional appropriators.  With ordinary “must-pass” legislation, Democrats might be expected to seek funding for their priorities, and to try to hold the line on Republican ornaments, as the price of their votes. 

      Funding cut-offs, actual or threatened, have been a crucial tool for Congresses to force an end to unpopular wars.  Democrats could make a deadline for ending hostilities the price of their votes.  Republicans will object that telling the enemy when we will end attacks will encourage intransigence.  As the Administration still seems not to have figured out what its war aims are, much less how to talk with a regime it keeps trying to decapitate, it is hard to argue that a termination date will hinder negotiations.  And Democrats can argue that the Administration has only itself to blame for starting a war unilaterally. 

      Another possibility might be to limit all new appropriations to being spent on activities unrelated to Iran.  That would let the Administration expend current stocks on its war on Iran while allowing Democrats to vote only for funds to protect Taiwan and South Korea.  This Administration’s repeated violations of appropriations conditions, however, makes the efficacy of this approach dubious.

      Many Democrats, however, oppose this war so vehemently that they will not want to provide votes under any circumstances.  And thanks to former Senator Joe Manchin’s defense of the filibuster, if the Democrats stand their ground (losing no more than six votes in the Senate), they can indeed block a supplemental appropriations bill.  But then what?

      Republicans can bypass the filibuster by funding the Pentagon through budget reconciliation.  The Senate’s “Byrd Rule” prohibits measures authorizing appropriations on reconciliation bills, but a measure that directly funded the Pentagon likely would have the requisite fiscal effect.  Congress historically has rarely funded non-entitlement programs on reconciliation bills out of respect for, or fear of, its Appropriations Committees.  But President Trump has repeatedly humiliated Republican appropriators without provoking any blowback.  He likely could do so again. 

      To fund the war through reconciliation, Republicans would need to pass a “budget resolution” empowering (“reconciling”) the House and Senate Armed Services Committees to report out legislation with military funding.  This resolution cannot be filibustered, but would likely take two or three days of time on the Senate floor.  Once the budget resolution was approved, the Armed Services Committees could send military funding bills to their Budget Committees and then on to their respective floors.  This “budget reconciliation” legislation could not be filibustered, either, although Democrats could force numerous embarrassing votes related to war funding each step of the way.  This likely would take about a week of the Senate’s time (but relatively little in the House). 

      So should Democrats force Republicans to use reconciliation?  Maybe.  If the Republicans have only their own votes, they will need near-unanimity in the House and can lose only three votes in the Senate.  To assure the votes of war-skeptical far-right Republicans who like to posture as fiscal conservatives, leadership may decide to offset the cost of the war with further cuts to Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and other domestic programs.  (Offsets from the opulent upper-income tax cuts in last summer’s reconciliation act would make far more sense but will have little appeal to Republicans.)  While they are at it, Republicans also could provide several years of funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), mooting Democrat’s filibuster of the Homeland Security Appropriations bill.     

      To be sure, Republicans could include disturbing domestic spending offsets in a supplemental appropriations bill passing through ordinary procedures.  Finding a sufficiently large package of discretionary program cuts to unite their caucus, however, would be challenging – and quite impossible if they are dependent on seven Senate Democratic votes. 

      A third option Republican leaders would have if Democrats refuse to support a war supplemental appropriations bill would be to try to eliminate the filibuster.  President Trump has been loudly demanding that Senate Republicans do so for some time now.  Senate Majority Leader Thune has reported that he lacks the votes in the Republican caucus to eliminate the filibuster over their voter suppressing “SAVE America Act”.  Whether the need to “fund our troops”, combined with President Trump’s insistent pressure, will get him the fifty votes he needs is difficult to predict.  If Senate Republicans do end the filibuster to pass a war supplemental appropriation, however, the next thing they will do is use these new procedures to pass the SAVE America Act.  Ghastly anti-environmental, anti-civil rights, anti-civil liberties, and anti-consumer legislation will quickly follow.    

      Thus, all the Democrats’ choices once a supplemental appropriations bill surfaces are quite unattractive.  They can try to negotiate the best bill they can and then provide the seven votes needed in the Senate to pass it.  If they do, a huge part of the Democratic base will erupt with rage.  Alternatively, they can filibuster and accept the high likelihood that Republicans will pass the funding measure on their own, either offset with savage cuts to low-income programs or through the destruction if the filibuster – and with it almost all Democratic leverage to prevent enactment of the very worst of the far-right legislative agenda. 

      I do not know what the right answer is.  But if anyone tells you the choice is clear, you are likely listening to someone who does not understand what is really at stake.

      @DavidASuper.bsky.social @DavidASuper1