{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=AB413AA7-CECA-4A3F-84C3-93EEDE578CE4", "McConnell Remarks at SAC-D FY27 Defense Budget Hearing", "2026-05-12", "2026", "2026-05", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", "mcconnell", "https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, delivered the following opening statement at today\u2019s hearing, \u201cA Review of the President\u2019s Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Request for the Department of Defense\u201d:\n\nSecretary Hegseth, General Caine \u2013 welcome. I\u2019m looking forward to discussing the President\u2019s budget request and I\u2019m encouraged by this opportunity to work together for the common defense.\n\nToday, the need for significant defense investments is as urgent and obvious as it is overdue. Quantity has a quality all its own. And the sheer scale of our defense commitments sends a powerful signal.\n\nBut what goes on under that topline matters. The way this budget request is structured matters. This is not a $1.5 trillion dollar defense appropriations request. It\u2019s a request for $1.1 trillion in base appropriations and another $350 billion in reconciliation.\n\nThe good news? The base request reflects real growth, unlike the net cut in the FY26 request\u2026 and unlike the Biden-level CR for FY25.\n\nBut some of the most pressing items on the FY27 to-do list are downstream of missed opportunities in FY26\u2026 Like the failure to fully fund $28 billion in multiyear contracts for critical munitions. This subcommittee did what we could to increase munitions purchases above the FY26 requested levels. But we couldn\u2019t do it all without sufficient topline.\n\nThis year, the FY27 request sets a higher topline\u2026High enough, one would think, to build the Department\u2019s highest priorities into the base budget request, instead of shunting them off into a one-time reconciliation request.\n\nWhich brings me to the bad news: The FY27 request fails to make room in the base budget for some of the military\u2019s top priorities.\n\nThis distinction between base and reconciliation matters. Base funding is what creates budget stability for the services and sends consistent demand signals to industry. And base funding is what gets extended by short-term continuing resolutions when work on full-year appropriations is unfinished.\n\nAs I said last year, reconciliation should be a supplement to, not a substitute for, sustained annual funding.\n\nPolitical realities will not always allow for party-line budget reconciliation, and if the Department\u2019s top priorities aren\u2019t built into annual appropriations, we\u2019re taking a big risk.\n\nThe Department is right to make Golden Dome, munitions, the F-35 program, and drone dominance top priorities.\n\nBut these key lines of effort only work if we put them on solid fiscal footing.\n\nSo why is the Department requesting funding for multi-year munitions contracts \u2013 which, by definition, require steady year-on-year funding \u2013 via one-time reconciliation?\n\nAnd why risk some of the President\u2019s top priorities like Golden Dome by not firmly building them into the Department\u2019s base budget?\n\nNational missile defense will require sustained funding over many years, not a one-off expenditure.\n\nOther key platforms, like a second destroyer and the E-7 battle management aircraft aren\u2019t requested in base or reconciliation.\n\nMr. Secretary, you\u2019ve been outspoken about the place of America\u2019s armed forces as the \u201cmost powerful, most lethal, and most prepared military on the planet\u201d.\n\nI\u2019m as committed as you are to sustaining that role\u2026 But that\u2019s precisely why I\u2019m confused by the Administration\u2019s failure to prioritize key systems in year-on-year base-budget spending.\n\nMr. Secretary, I hope you\u2019ll also explain the Department\u2019s current approach to allies and partners. The stunning success of Operation Midnight Hammer and Operation Epic Fury illustrates the importance of the access, basing, and overflight granted by allies in Europe and the Gulf.\n\nI\u2019m as frustrated as anyone about Spain, but they are the exception to the rule when it comes to European allies carrying more of the burden.\n\nLikewise, it\u2019s impossible to conceive of U.S. power projection in INDOPACOM without the reach that comes from decades-old alliance relationships.\n\nSo I\u2019ll want to hear the Department\u2019s view on the role of longtime allies in support of U.S. interests across the globe\u2026 Because it\u2019s quite clear now that our expectation for European allies is no longer the \u201cfocus on your own continent\u201d message they received from your subordinates for most of last year.\n\nOur adversaries are working together to undermine America and the West.\n\nStrained relations with our partners \u2013 who are making generational commitments to collective defense and driving investment into American-made weapons and systems \u2013 serves our adversaries\u2019 interests and limits our capacity and deterrent power globally.\n\nSo I\u2019ll want to hear about the future of capacity-building with committed allies and partners, from the Baltic States to Taiwan and the Philippines. And I expect that European capacity-building investments intended specifically for Ukraine reach their destination without further delay.\n\nWars in Ukraine and the Middle East clearly show that we have things to learn from our friends. If we want Drone Dominance, it makes perfect sense to deepen cooperation with the world\u2019s foremost drone warfare experts.\n\nThis isn\u2019t charity. When our partners are capable, deterrence is stronger and the risk to US servicemembers is lower. This is as true in the Middle East today as it is in Europe and in the Indo-Pacific.\n\nOur allies and partners share many of our global interests, and if fail to take advantage of this alignment, we\u2019re only hurting ourselves.\n\nI\u2019ll end with one final observation on the prospect of supplemental appropriations: The deficiencies of our critical munitions stocks and industrial capacity existed long before conflict with Iran and Russia\u2019s escalation in Ukraine.\n\nIf the Administration sends Congress a supplemental appropriations request, it\u2019ll be an important step toward fixing a longstanding problem and investing in future deterrence. It shouldn\u2019t be a referendum on war in Iran.\n\nI supported a national security supplemental in 2024 even though I thought President Biden\u2019s approach to Russia and Iran was too weak.\n\nI did it not only because supporting Ukraine is in our strategic interests, but because these funds helped replenish American stockpiles and restore our own defense industrial base.\n\nToday, the need to expand munitions production and replace battlefield losses is even more urgent.\n\nAnd if we get the chance to consider an emergency supplemental, I would urge each of our colleagues \u2013 even those who object to the president\u2019s use of force against Iran \u2013 to leave politics at the door and help restore readiness.", 1, "2026-05-13T06:12:22Z", "2026-05-13T06:13:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=AB413AA7-CECA-4A3F-84C3-93EEDE578CE4"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.4777220096439123, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}