Washington (CNN) -- It always comes back to the budget.
With Congress facing a
crucial debate on attacking Syria over chemical weapons use,
conservatives are signaling their price for support may be increased
funding for a shrinking military budget.
Two hawkish Republicans
-- Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina --
went to the White House on Monday to argue their call for a robust
military campaign against Syria intended to significantly weaken the
regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Implicit with such a
campaign would be the needed restoration of military funding cut by
austerity measures and transformation policies in recent years,
including the forced spending cuts known as sequestration imposed by
Congress for the current fiscal year.
"We cannot keep asking
the military to perform mission after mission with a sequestration and
military cuts hanging over their heads," GOP Rep. Buck McKeon of
California, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told CNN
on Monday. "We have to take care of our own people first."
While McKeon made clear
that his concern is about future preparedness rather than current
capability, he argued a bedrock conservative stance against having the
military be a major contributor to cost-cutting in Washington.
"I have no concerns of
their capability. They're the strongest, best equipped, best trained
military," he said. "What I'm looking at is what they've been hit with
the last couple years. Where will they be the next time they're asked?"
Noting that "the world
has not gotten safer," McKeon complained that "we're cutting back $1
trillion out of our military, asking them to do more with less."
McKeon: stop asking the military to do more with less
"That has to stop," he
said, calling for President Barack Obama to "fix" the across-the-board
spending cuts on the military and other discretionary government
spending that doesn't include entitlement programs such as Medicare and
Medicaid.
After meeting with
Obama, both McCain and Graham said they were encouraged by the
president's intended approach, which includes more military aid for
Syria's opposition while degrading the capabilities of al-Assad's
forces.
However, they said they
need more detailed assurances that the U.S. strategy would be
sufficiently strong and sustainable before they could recommend it to
their colleagues, who will vote in coming weeks on whether to authorize
military action.
"There seems to be
emerging from this administration a pretty solid plan to upgrade the
opposition" in Syria and to "get regional players more involved" in
shifting the balance of the Syrian civil war against the al-Assad
regime, Graham said.
Both McCain and Graham
said congressional rejection of a resolution authorizing U.S. military
force in Syria would be catastrophic and undermine the credibility of
the nation and the president.
Syria issue exacerbates budge wars
The Syria issue exacerbates an already hostile budget environment between the two parties.
With fiscal year 2013
ending in four weeks, Congress has yet to pass a 2014 budget and is
expected to consider a short-term measure to extend spending at current
levels for weeks or months to allow time for further negotiations.
A major issue of the
budget debate is whether to recalibrate spending to soften or eliminate
the impact of the forced cuts of sequestration. While both sides say
that is the right move, they remain unable to agree on how to make it
happen.
Obama and Democrats want
to maintain or increase spending on education, technology and
infrastructure, while Republicans seek to shrink overall government
spending. The two sides also differ on tax reform, another key component
of spending policy.
In addition, the government says it needs an increase in its borrowing limit -- the debt ceiling -- sometime next month.
Some Republicans
advocate a government shutdown unless Democrats capitulate on spending
cuts, especially to a call by tea party conservatives such as Sen. Ted
Cruz of Texas to eliminate from next year's budget the funds needed to
implement the 2010 health care reform law.
Congress to debate Syria resolution
Congress will not vote
on Obama's request to authorize the use of force against Syria until
sometime after it officially returns from recess September 9. To launch
the debate on Capitol Hill, Senate and House committees will hold
hearings this week.
Secretary of State John
Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman
Gen. Martin Dempsey will appear at the first hearing by the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, sources said.
In addition, Obama will
meet Tuesday with House Speaker John Boehner and House Democratic leader
Nancy Pelosi, as well as leaders of national security committees in
Congress.
Conservatives have increased references to overall military spending in recent days when commenting on the Syria situation.
"I have watched what's
happened in the last 4 1/2 years with the president downgrading our
military," Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the
Senate Armed Services Committee, told CNN on Friday. "And it's to the
point where we're in a position right now where we don't have the assets
to get involved in another intervention."
He warned that firing
cruise missiles at Syria would inevitably lead to greater involvement
and that administration officials must "make sure that you tell us how
you're going to pay for it, what resources you're going to use, what
assets you're going to use and that they're there."
GOP Rep. Mike Pompeo of
Kansas, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, argued Monday for a
bigger mission than the limited strikes Obama has said he has been
considering.
"It does us no good to
just lob a few missiles into Syria," Pompeo said. "This is in the
context of an Iranian-backed enterprise with Bashar al-Assad, with
Hezbollah. You have al Qaeda now having the ability to move on the
ground and perhaps get chemical weapons. America has interests that are
much more broad than some short strike could possibly accomplish and so
we need a strategic vision with real definable and achievable goals."
The administration's "flood the zone" strategy
Obama and his team also
emphasize the national security angle when arguing for a military
response to what they call a major chemical weapons attack by al-Assad's
regime on August 21 on Damascus suburbs.
The president, along
with Vice President Joe Biden and White House Chief of Staff Denis
McDonough, was making phone calls to House and Senate members to try to
firm up commitments ahead of the congressional vote.
A conference call with
House Democrats also was planned as part of what a senior administration
official called a strategy to "flood the zone." In the calls, the
official said, the White House will be making the same case it did
during a classified Capitol Hill briefing Sunday.
The argument is that
failure to take action against Syria would undermine the deterrent of
international action against chemical weapons use, emboldening al-Assad
and his key allies -- Hezbollah and Iran -- who will see a lack of
consequences for such a flagrant violation.
On the administration side, there is no mention -- yet -- of the military budget.
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