Two top GOP senators on the Senate Appropriations Committee are opposing a third reconciliation bill, both said during a hearing on the Air Force’s budget Tuesday.
The Trump administration’s total $1.5 trillion fiscal 2027 defense request is split between $1.15 trillion in discretionary spending and $350 billion the White House has said it will seek through a third reconciliation bill. Such a bill allows Republicans to again pass billions of dollars in spending without requiring votes from Democrats to meet the 60 vote threshold in the Senate to break the filibuster.
The reconciliation bill’s “mandatory spending,” a Defense Department spending category coined by the Trump administration, is not subject to the same oversight as traditionally appropriated funds. However, the term is inept because “mandatory spending” has not applied to Pentagon programs, but instead to obligatory, annual payments by the federal government for the national debt, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
At a hearing on the Department of the Air Force budget on Tuesday, Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) said that a third reconciliation bill “may never happen” and that, of the $154 million the Air Force requests in fiscal 2027 for the power thermal management upgrade for the Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter, only $10 million is in the fiscal 2027 discretionary budget request.
The F-35A is certified to carry nuclear weapons, specifically the B61-12 thermonuclear gravity bomb produced by the National Nuclear Security Administration.
“It is taking a terrible risk and creates instability when you’re counting on a third reconciliation bill for the bulk of the money, rather than doing base funding through the defense appropriations bill,” Collins told Air Force Secretary Troy Meink.
“I think it’s safe to conclude there will not be a third reconciliation bill so it’s really not an option,” added Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense panel.
“I agree with that assessment,” Collins then said.
Exchange Monitor affiliate Defense Daily first published a version of this story.