House Armed Services Leaders Chastise Pentagon Over Wall Funding

(Bloomberg) -- Defense Secretary Mark Esper received bipartisan criticism in the House Armed Services Committee for the Pentagon’s acquiescence to President Donald Trump’s continuing demands to shift military funding to pay for his border wall.

“This effort to keep stealing money for the wall is really undermining the Department of Defense,” House Armed Services Chairman Adam Smith, a Washington state Democrat, said during a hearing on Wednesday. “We have a bipartisan consensus that should not be done.”

The Pentagon has transferred $3.8 billion, mostly from weapons systems, into the Defense Department’s counternarcotics account, which the Trump administration is using to help fund the wall along the Mexican border. Despite strong GOP support for Trump -- and the wall -- Republicans on the congressional defense panels object to the repeated shifting of funds from congressionally supported programs for weapons and military construction.

Representative Mac Thornberry of Texas, the panel’s top Republican, told Esper “this is a deeper issue than the wall. I support walls. I’m afraid that this, the result of this, will be greater restrictions on the department’s ability to move money around, to meet changing needs, and the country will suffer as a result.”

Esper defended the shift in funds.

“The president has determined that we have a national emergency on our southwest border, that to deal with that emergency, that we need a barrier system,” Esper said and that “requires the support” of the Pentagon.

Democratic John Garamendi of California later rebuked Esper. “Apparently, you’re not listening” to comments on “the ripoff and the disregard that this administration has with regard to the Constitution,” he said.

‘Tough Decisions’

Esper came before the committee calling on Congress to support “tough decisions” needed for the Pentagon to hold spending virtually flat in the coming year while seeking to make U.S. forces better able to confront China and Russia.

The budget request of $705.4 billion for fiscal 2021, compared with the current year’s enacted amount of $704.6 billion, “does not keep pace with inflation,” Esper said. “Given this flattened funding level, we were required to make many tough decisions to ensure our highest priorities were adequately funded,” he said.

With funding increases for nuclear modernization, the new Space Force and hypersonic weapons, among others, Esper said the Defense Department will seek congressional support for expanding reviews that he he has said helped generate about $6 billion in savings over the past year.

Esper said in prepared remarks that Congress needs to commit to ending support for outdated “legacy systems.” Lawmakers whose constituents benefit from producing them often insist on keeping such projects alive.

Navy’s Goal

Esper was pressed by lawmakers about the appropriate size of the Navy fleet and its fiscal 2021 request for eight new vessels, two fewer than had been planned for the coming year.

Esper said he not only supports the Trump’s stated goal of 355 vessels by the 2030s but “I actually think we need more,” but not at the expense of creating a “hollow” force. The service has 293 deployable ships today.

Still, Esper said he also supported the Navy’s fiscal 2021 move to shift dollars into “readiness because of the challenges they’ve had getting ships to sea” and “operationally available.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Glen Carey in Washington at gcarey8@bloomberg.net;Tony Capaccio in Washington at acapaccio@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, Larry Liebert

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