The Senate’s top Armed Services Republicans reflected on President Donald Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) shortly after the White House released details of its government funding proposal for fiscal year 2026.
“President Trump has succeeded in peace through his strength agenda, but his advisor to the Office of Management and Budget clearly hadn’t heard,” R-Miss said. Senator Roger Wicker said in a statement.
“The big and beautiful settlement bill was intended to fundamentally change the orientation of the pentagon for programs such as Golden Dome, border support, and unmanned capabilities. It’s not a paper around Omboo’s intention to sink support to its military capabilities and service members into the bones.
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R-Miss. Senator Roger Wicker was torn to the OMB due to Trump’s budget. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc.
Trump OMB’s “Skinny Budget,” released Friday, will increase non-defense funding cuts by $163 billion, but defense funding has risen 13%, up from $893 billion to $1.01 trillion. This includes discretionary spending $892.6 billion, supplemented by the mandatory spending of $119.3 billion, which is expected to be passed in the upcoming settlement bill.
A senior official told Fox News that the Trump administration needs to get creative to win more than $1 trillion in the finish line. Republican majority have historically been forced to provide a one-to-one increase in non-defense spending to ensure an increase in defensive spending.
However, by maintaining the same level of discretionary defence spending as in FY25 at $89.26 billion, the budget presented to Democrats reflects the unchanged defence discretionary budget, which is a 22.6% reduction, with a lesser non-defence discretionary budget of around $557 billion.
White House and Congressional Republicans pursue a reset of defense spending through a budget adjustment process linked to the tax cut package.
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He claimed that the Bureau of Management and Budget, led by Coach Russell Vert, was intended as a US military capability “to sculpture in the bones.” (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
But Wicker isn’t satisfied.
“The OMB is not asking for a trillion dollar budget. This is asking for a $892.6 billion budget, which will be effectively reduced. This budget will reduce President Trump’s military options and his negotiation leverage,” he said.
“I have been saying for months that settlement defense spending will not replace the need for true growth in the military’s basic budget.”
OMB and pentagons were not immediately contacted to comment on the budget.
To account for a decline in government-wide spending, all departments were asked to provide recommended budget cuts, with the exceptions excluded to protect veteran services and NASA and space exploration programs, except for the veteran services and transportation sector.
Hegseth has not yet weighed OMB’s defense spending proposals. ((Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images))
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Congress should propose a White House framework and present its own budget plan that could take months.
Wicker has long been aiming to increase US defense spending to 5% of GDP from around 3.5%.
The Mississippi Senators have proposed to ignore OMB guidelines and work to achieve “real growth” within the defense budget.
Fox Business’s Edward Lawrence and Eric Revell contributed to this report.
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