Analysts say they expect Congress to remove caps on defense spending once President-elect Donald Trump advances his proposal to equip the military with more warfighters, new ships and fighter jets, Defense News reported Thursday.
Joe Gould writes analysts, however, believe that in order to pursue plans to build up defense capabilities, Trump would need to deal with Republican “fiscal hawks†who are not in favor of deficit spending as well as Democrats who seek parity in spending between defense and non-defense programs.
Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense analyst with the American Enterprise Institute, said Trump’s plan to fund an increase in weapons spending based on then-President Ronald Reagan’s strategy to reduce “waste, fraud and abuse†at the Defense Department is a “fantasy,†according to a report by Anthony Capaccio for Bloomberg.
According to his campaign website, Trump would fund his national defense rebuilding plans through a complete audit of DoD, reduction in duplicative bureaucracy, elimination of unwanted federal initiatives and collection of unpaid taxes.
Eaglen said such objectives “cannot yield $55 to $60 billion per year in new money to reinvest.â€
