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By Mandy Taheri
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The Trump administration's push to raise defense spending, and potentially through a reconciliation bill, is stirring concern among some Republicans, including Senator Lisa Murkowski. The Alaska Republican's communications team referred Newsweek to her Tuesday comments to reporters, stating, “A reconciliation bill is not how we ensure defense spending going forward. That’s what we do in appropriations.”
Why It Matters
Reconciliation is a fast-track budget process that allows the Senate to pass certain spending bills with a simple majority, avoiding the 60-vote threshold that would require several Democrats to join Republicans, given the chamber's balance of power.
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Earlier this year, lawmakers used reconciliation to approve a one-time defense funding boost of more than $150 billion. The process is used for increases and mandatory spending and revenue changes, not the annual Pentagon budget, which is set through appropriations and the yearly Defense Department funding bills.
Over the weekend, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last year’s reconciliation bill to boost defense spending is “only just the beginning,” noting that defense spending will increase and likely increase further through reconciliation. The U.S. national defense budget totaled more than $890 billion in 2025, the Center for Strategic and International Studies reported.
What To Know
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought said over the weekend that the White House is not opposed to considering a second budget reconciliation bill this year to advance defense funding.
Vought applauded last year’s reconciliation funding, which he said “allowed us to get all of these priorities—Golden Dome, shipbuilding, nuclear modernization—in a mandatory account that now has certainty. So, that's not subject to the highs and lows of the appropriations process.”
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He said the 60-vote threshold for appropriations has meant that “defense increases has led to a ratcheting up of non-defense spending for decades and we’re just never going to be able to get our fiscal house in order with that ratchet.”
But some Republicans oppose the move, including Senators Murkowski and Roger Wicker. The Mississippi Republican who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee told Punchbowl News, “I would prefer to use the regular appropriations process.”
House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Ken Calvert said on Saturday that a second reconciliation bill would be no easy feat, telling Punchbowl News, “It was hard last time. It’ll be harder next time. And they don’t have all the little sugar that goes on the side.”
The previous reconciliation bill drew some pushback from Republican Senator Mitch McConnell.
What People Are Saying
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Saturday: “[The military] will not be distracted by democracy building, interventionism, undefined wars, regime change, climate change, woke moralizing and feckless nation building.”
The November National Security Strategy states: “We want the world’s most robust, credible, and modern nuclear deterrent, plus next-generation missile defenses—including a Golden Dome for the American homeland—to protect the American people, American assets overseas, and American allies…We want the world’s most robust industrial base. American national power depends on a strong industrial sector capable of meeting both peacetime and wartime production demands. That requires not only direct defense industrial production capacity but also defense-related production capacity. Cultivating American industrial strength must become the highest priority of national economic policy.”
The House Armed Services Committee Republicans said in an X post on Wednesday: "We’re proud of the work we’re doing to carry out President Trump’s Peace through Strength agenda in the FY26 NDAA. Together, we’re cutting red tape, strengthening American deterrence, and increasing support for our servicemembers. We’re looking forward to having him sign this into law so we can deliver on his promise to build the most ready, capable, and lethal fighting force in the world."
Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, told Punchbowl News: “What goes around comes around and, frankly, it would be destructive of one of the few remaining bipartisan issues.”
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, said in a December 8 X post: "This week we are voting on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that funds our military and it’s, once again, filled with American’s hard earned tax dollars used to fund foreign aid and foreign country’s wars. These American People are $38 Trillion in debt, suffering from an affordability crisis, on the verge of a healthcare crisis, and credit card debt is at an all time high."
House Speaker Mike Johnson said when the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was released: "This year's National Defense Authorization Act helps advance President Trump and Republicans' Peace Through Strength Agenda by codifying 15 of President Trump's executive orders, ending woke ideology at the Pentagon, securing the border, revitalizing the defense industrial base, and restoring the warrior ethos."
What Happens Next
The House is expected to vote on the NDAA on Wednesday.
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