House Democratic lawmakers have cited a Defense Department-backed study to question President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal 2018 that would increase defense spending by $54 billion, Defense News reported Tuesday.
Lawmakers who attended the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing Tuesday discussed the Defense Business Board study, which claimed that DoD could save approximately $125 billion over a period of five years through renegotiation of contracts, employee training and early retirements, Joe Gould wrote.
The board claimed that those unrealized savings could be reintroduced into the department to deploy personnel across three military branches.
DBB is an advisory panel of civilian business executives that was formed to provide management advice to defense leaders, Gould noted.
Trump “proposes funding this increase by slashing dozens of critical programs that promote our national security and our nation’s most vulnerable communities—the elderly, children, and the rural working class,†Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) said at the hearing, the report added.
Trump on Thursday proposed a $1.1 trillion FY 2018 budget that includes funding cuts to the State Department, Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies.