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Senators voted 51-46, along party lines, to defeat an amendment to
an annual defense policy bill that would have barred a
Republican-led plan to use the special war funds to avoid the
spending cap, but only for the Department of Defense.
The mandatory spending limits have been in place for two years.
In an early gambit in what will likely be a difficult partisan clash
over U.S. budget and tax policy this year, Democrats have been
threatening to hold up spending bills until lawmakers agree on a
plan to scrap mandatory spending limits for domestic programs as
well as defense.
Republicans argue that the military should be spared many of the
so-called sequestration cuts to ensure national security, but they
accuse Democrats of using the issue to camouflage a desire for
irresponsible spending.
"It's wrong to use defense as leverage or as blackmail to try to
force higher spending in other programs," Republican Representative
Mac Thornberry, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee,
told reporters.
Democrats say other programs subject to the spending caps, such as
medical research, embassy security and education, are also
important.
"If you don't like what happened at Benghazi, and none of us do, you
need to spend money on embassy security," said Senator Barbara
Mikulski, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee,
referring to the deadly 2012 attack on U.S. facilities in Libya.
Democrats called the war funds plan a "gimmick" and said Republicans
should agree to negotiate an easing of the across-the-board budget
constraints.
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Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would
decline to convene a budget negotiating panel, adding that
discretionary spending levels were already set in House and Senate
budget plans passed earlier this year.
"There's been a lot of big talk about stopping bills. We'll see
whether they really want to do that," McConnell said.
The Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) money, intended to fund
ongoing wars, does not count against the budget caps.
President Barack Obama asked for $50 billion in OCO funding in his
budget request, but Congress added $38 billion for the Pentagon. The
White House has threatened to veto the defense policy bill over the
use of the contingency fund money.
(Additional reporting by David Lawder, editing by G Crosse)
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