Senate Adds Billions for Air Force Programs to GOP Spending Bill

Senate lawmakers unveiled legislation June 4 that would funnel at least $26 billion to the Air Force and Space Force starting this year as Washington Republicans aim to modernize America’s aging military and revitalize the defense industrial base for an era of competition between world powers. 

The Senate bill offers billions more dollars for military aerospace than its House counterpart, which narrowly passed May 22 as part of a partisan tax-and-spending package making its way across Capitol Hill. The Department of the Air Force stands to receive many billions more under broad provisions for military space sensors and missile development, for instance, that don’t specify which organization would use the funds.

The provisions are part of the so-called “One Big, Beautiful Bill” that would enact large swaths of Republican President Donald Trump’s policy agenda through the budget reconciliation process, which lets lawmakers pass spending legislation with fewer votes than usual.

It illustrates the Senate’s commitment to “peace through strength,” Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) told reporters at a June 4 Defense Writers Group event.

“We still have a strong military, but the trend is not headed in the right direction,” Wicker said. “The military advancements that will result from this bill are indeed historic, and their importance cannot be overstated.”

Senators kept the bill’s $150 billion cap for defense spending but set slightly different priorities than the House for how that money should be spent to challenge Chinese dominance in the Pacific, secure the U.S.-Mexico border and bolster America’s air defenses, among other issues.

As in the House, the Senate defense panel looks to boost production of the F-15EX fighter, B-21 bomber, C-130J transport aircraft, EA-37B electronic-attack jet and MH-139 patrol helicopter. It would also prevent retirement of the F-22 and F-15E fighters, speed development of the next-generation F-47 fighter and Collaborative Combat Aircraft drones, and fund Air Force training in the Pacific. It offers $2.1 billion for spare parts and repairs for Air Force platforms as well.

For the Air Force, the Senate bill adds $2.5 billion for facilities upkeep and modernization; $250 million to field air defenses that are cheaper than those systems typically cost; $50 million for fuel tanks to extend the range of the F-15EX; and $10 million apiece for wargaming and the Air Force Concepts, Development, and Management Office.  

Senators also offered to spend more than the House on certain Air Force initiatives. Those include $2.5 billion to continue developing the Sentinel land-based nuclear missile, $1 billion more than in the House bill; $550 million for classified programs, a $250 million boost; and $187 million to add electronic warfare tools to the F-16 fighter, a $137 million increase.

Some Space Force programs would see a greater windfall from the Senate as well. Classified military space superiority programs would receive $5.1 billion under the Senate bill, more than $1 billion over the House version; plus $150 million rather than $100 million for ground target-tracking satellites.

The bill also adds $7.2 billion for military space sensors and $5.6 billion for space-based and boost-phase missile interceptors; it’s unclear how much of that money would go to the Space Force.

Lawmakers also earmarked $3.3 billion for military operations along the U.S.-Mexico border, including to hold migrants at U.S. bases. A defense official said in February the Army was planning to house as many 30,000 detained migrants at its installations.

The $150 billion defense portion of the massive reconciliation bill aims to push the U.S. defense budget above $1 trillion for the first time, when added to the $893 billion the Trump administration seeks in baseline annual funding.

Wicker argues the U.S. needs to steadily increase baseline defense spending rather than trying to pad it through unconventional measures. Asked how funding offered through reconciliation could affect lawmakers’ priorities for next year’s base budget, Wicker predicted Congress will float a “vastly different number” than the Trump administration has proposed.

“I think House and Senate authorizers and House and Senate appropriators are likely to have quite a different view from OMB on how that is racked and stacked,” Wicker said.

“There are some members of the administration who thought we would be delighted with the $1 trillion,” he added. “That’s not the way we viewed it.”

Though Republicans on the Hill welcome reconciliation as an opportunity to spend 5 percent of America’s gross domestic product, or around $1.5 trillion, on defense, Wicker said the Trump administration is using the measure to pretend that it can both cut defense spending while also achieving a historically large Pentagon budget.

“It makes no sense,” Wicker said. 

He suggested it won’t be difficult for lawmakers to reconcile differences between the House and Senate bills, saying he and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers largely agree on a way forward and that the Trump administration is on board.

Rogers, of Alabama, said in a June 4 statement he’s eager to continue the party’s forward momentum on a “generational investment.”

But Wicker acknowledged disagreements over other aspects of the enormous spending package, from Medicaid cuts to its impact on the federal debt, could spell trouble for the defense provisions if efforts to rally Senate Republicans to vote for the bill fall short.

“I really think maybe 85 senators, if you ask them in a vacuum, do they want this $150 billion to be enacted? They would say yes—Democrats and Republicans,” he said of the defense package. “It’s the other parts that are going to take some massaging.”

Republican leaders on the Hill hope the package can clear Congress and reach Trump’s desk by July 4.

While the GOP could unilaterally enact the reconciliation bill without wooing Democrats, boosting the base budget would require buy-in from both parties to reach the 60-vote threshold needed for appropriations bills in the Senate. Both the compromise reconciliation measure and annual appropriations will need to survive a razor-thin Republican majority to pass in the House.

Wicker’s panel will get the chance to publicly press Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on the 2026 budget at a June 18 hearing—the first time Hegseth has appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee since his confirmation in January.

The defense secretary is also slated to testify before the House and Senate appropriations committees on June 10, as well as the House Armed Services Committee on June 12.