Senate kills Dem plan to cap defense spending

by Pete Kasperowicz, Washington Examiner
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The Senate on Tuesday shot down a Democratic proposal to strip strip out $38 billion from a bill authorizing defense spending for the next fiscal year, a sign Republicans won’t budge on their controversial plan to boost defense spending.

Democrats have warned for weeks that they would try to remove $38 billion from the overseas contingency operations account, or OCO, and they’re expected to try again in the coming weeks and months. Democrats say it’s unfair for Republicans to stuff extra money into OCO, usually reserved for funding war operations, in order to get around the defense sequester, while other agencies don’t have that kind of way around the cuts.

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., called up the amendment to cut OCO spending from $89.2 billion to just shy of $51 billion. He said using OCO to fund normal defense items would lead to a slippery slope that could lead to more abuse of the war account.

“Not only will we become addicted to OCO spending, many, many interesting things will find their way into the OCO account,” he said.

But Republicans were firmly against Reed’s plan, and shot it down in a 46-51 vote. Just before that vote, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Reed’s plan would hurt the Department of Defense at a critical time.

“Despite the claims that OCO is a slush fund, the entirety of the OCO budget goes towards real defense requirements,” McCain said. “With this budget authority, we’re supporting our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, operations against ISIL and broader counterterrorism efforts.”