House plan would boost Trump’s defense budget request by $8 billion

Congress plans to increase funding for the Department of Defense by close to $8.4 billion over the Trump administration’s budget, according to draft legislation released by the House Appropriations Committee.

The total amount of $838.7 billion would be an increase of slightly less than 1% over the enacted 2025 level for defense spending. It includes a 3.8% pay raise for military personnel, according to committee Democrats.

The House plans to vote later this week on a final package of fiscal 2026 spending bills that includes the defense funding proposal.

The bill also would boost funds that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth could use at his discretion, allowing him to redirect up to $15 million that follows “reprogramming guidance” from Congress.

A congressional report describing the bill said it ultimately rejects the Pentagon’s request to retool the funding-and-budget process entirely and does not allow for the $25 million in increased research and development sought by the Army.

The bill still requires Mr. Hegseth and the services under him to submit reports for all their budget reprogramming changes in June of this year, keeping with congressional requirements from past decades. 

Congress wants the military to have “demonstrated full and effective use of its existing flexibilities and addressed internal delays” before being allowed more control over its dollars, according to the report released by the House Appropriations Committee.

The total funding still has some programs that the Pentagon will be “unable” to fully fund.

The bill does include money for President Trump’s “Golden Dome” project — $23 billion will go toward the new program, even without Congress having the details thus far of where that money will be spent. 

Mr. Trump said last week that taking control of Greenland is part of that project. He plans to build Golden Dome, a system designed to protect America from ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missiles launched by adversaries. 

“It is vital for the Golden Dome that we are building. NATO should be leading the way for us to get it,” Mr. Trump said of Greenland.

Some of the push to support the new program does have use elsewhere — $500 million goes to support the solid rocket motor industrial base with companies such as Lockheed Martin and L3Harris Technologies.

L3Harris recently announced a $1 billion public stake in the company by the government as part of a deal to take its missile production and manufacturing division public. While the government will not have a role in the management of the company, according to Chris Kubasik, chairman and chief executive officer of L3Harris, it does raise questions around conflict of interest not addressed in the appropriations bill.

The bill is supportive of the department’s new approach to deliver new technology and capabilities quickly but warns that “speed must be factored alongside cost, performance, lethality, and scalability,” according to the report.