House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) has said he expects President-elect Donald Trump’s administration to file a supplemental bill to the defense budget measure for fiscal year 2017 “as soon as they get their feet on the ground,” The Hill reported Wednesday.
“Part of the reason we’re challenged right now is that we don’t have enough aircraft, [and] you have to have numbers to cover geography,â€Â he said Wednesday at a Foreign Policy Initiative-hosted forum.
Kristina Wong writes Thornberry appeared at the event with former Sen. Jim Talent (R-Missouri), who is one of the candidates for the Defense Department secretary post.
Thornberry said he expects the supplemental request to help fund the procurement of new ships and fighter aircraft that the compromise FY 2017 defense policy bill failed to include, according to a report by Joe Gould for Defense News.
House and Senate conference members reached a compromise Tuesday on the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act that would allocate $618.7 billion in defense budget.
Gould reports that the 2017 NDAA excludes plans to increase the U.S. Navy’s shipbuilding funds and buy an additional 14 F/A-18E/F aircraft and 11 F-35 jets, provisions that were included in the House-approved defense policy bill.