House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon has introduced a defense authorization bill that would boost Defense spending in 2014 by $5 billion beyond what the Pentagon has requested.
The additional spending would go toward the Afghanistan war,
The Hill reports.
The money would help erase automatic cuts in Air Force pilot training, Navy maintenance, and other readiness programs that have occurred over the past year due to sequestration.
According to The Hill, McKeon's proposal, which the committee is scheduled to mark up on Wednesday, includes $526.8 billion in base Pentagon spending. Some $85.8 billion of that figure is focused on the war in Afghanistan and marks an increase of about $5.1 billion from the Pentagon's 2014 budget request.
The authorization measure overall is actually $52 billion above the caps placed on defense spending by the Budget Control Act, The Hill noted. That means unless Congress moves to reverse the sequester, the Pentagon would be forced to make across-the-board cuts again next year to stay under the spending limits.
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