TCS and NTU Urge Support for Mulvaney-Van Hollen Amendments

Budget & Tax, National Security, | Our Take

Apr 30, 2015 | 3 min read | Print Article

In a letter to the House on Thursday, TCS and the National Taxpayers Union (NTU) urged members to support the amendments offered by Rep.s Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) to the FY2016 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations bill (H.R. 2029) that would remove several overseas military construction projects from the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) portion of the bill. Unlike the Dept. of Defense's “base” budget, the OCO account is not subject to the budget caps imposed by the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011. Stuffing OCO full of the projects in Bahrain, Djibouti, Italy, Oman, Poland and Niger as a way to avoid those caps demonstrates a blatant disregard for fiscal responsibility and an unwillingness to make the hard choices necessary to prioritize investments.

See the full text of the letter below:

April 30, 2015

Dear Representative,

Representatives Mulvaney (R-SC) and Van Hollen (D-MD) are sponsoring amendments to cut several overseas military construction projects from the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) portion of the Appropriations bill funding Military Construction and the Department of Veterans Affairs. We hope these amendments can be the beginning of a healthy debate over proper uses of the OCO account.

Putting more than half a billion in military construction projects in the OCO part of the budget is exactly the kind of thing our organizations believe must be stopped. If these projects in Bahrain, Djibouti, Italy, Oman, Poland and Niger are important to our national defense, the Pentagon should fund them out of its “base” budget where they are subject to the Budget Control Act (BCA) caps.

Putting them in the OCO accounts, simply because they are overseas, is an unacceptable attempt to build them with “free” money from the slush fund. Military construction has been squeezed in the last few years – the FY15 appropriations level was $4.7 billion. Adding a greater than 10% bump in the OCO slush fund may be the easy way out…but that doesn’t make it right.

It is clear that military construction is not a contingency; military construction is carefully planned for in advance.

Placing overseas military construction in the OCO account is a transparent dodge to avoid the BCA caps. We are asking the House leadership to allow straightforward votes on these amendments so we can see who is serious about cutting spending and adhering to the BCA – the only way to avoid sequestration.

Sincerely,