Congress Passes Short-Term Funding Bill, Putting DOD’s $1.5T Budget Ask on Hold

With 30 days to go before the end of fiscal 2026, Congress passed a continuing resolution Sept. 1 to extend current spending levels through Dec. 11—putting on hold the Pentagon’s request for $1.5 trillion in spending authority.

The House of Representatives and Senate had previously passed continuing resolutions, or CRs, with different end dates, but the House agreed to the Senate’s timeline in a 370-48 vote on Sept. 1. President Donald Trump is expected to sign the bill into law.

Under a CR, some or all of the federal government is funded at the previous fiscal year’s levels.

As military and civilian leaders frequently note, CRs typically don’t allow for new programs to start, delaying contracts and slowing training events. Yet CRs are now the rule, and years when the military has a budget on time are rare. According to the Government Accountability Office, this will be the 38th time in 50 years that the Defense Department will begin the fiscal year with a temporary spending measure.

But this year’s impact could be greater than most, because of the scale of increase the Pentagon is seeking. The Pentagon’s budget request for ’27 is $1.5 trillion, but by extending the baseline 2026 budget, it will be working with budget of $838.5 billion, 44 percent less than it wanted.

Funding included in 2025’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last summer by a Republican-only majority using a process called reconciliation is not covered by the CR. Because most of the funding for the Golden Dome for America missile defense shield was included in the reconciliation bill, the program now faces a crisis. Golden Dome Director Gen. Michael Guetlein warned last month that “a CR doesn’t help me under Golden Dome because I don’t have a topline to fall back to.”

The Air Force’s F-15EX program faces a similar conundrum. Its fiscal 2026 procurement was almost entirely funded through reconciliation; under the CR, it will start 2027 with a topline of $115 million, less than 5 percent of the $2.65 billion officials asked for.

Congress appears unlikely to approve the Pentagon’s full $1.5 trillion request, which the White House divided into two parts: $1.15 trillion through the usual appropriations process and $350 billion through the reconciliation process.

House appropriators advanced a base spending measure in June with $1.07 trillion for defense, but their Senate counterparts have yet to agree on a topline. And neither chamber has made any meaningful movement on the $350 billion reconciliation request.

The House did approve the framework for a much smaller reconciliation package, including just $60 billion for defense, but lawmakers say that money is meant to address supplemental needs to replenish the department for costs associated with the Iran war, rather than 2027 budget asks. Some top Republicans have suggested they will try for another reconciliation bill after the midterm elections to address the ’27 budget, but it’s unclear if they will be able to get even the current package across the finish line because of intraparty disagreements about how to pay for it.

Defense budget watchers have told Air & Space Forces Magazine they remain extremely skeptical about the outlook for the wished-for $1.5 trillion budget. Byron Callan of Capital Alpha Partners suggested in a recent newsletter that the base budget for 2027 may not clear Congress “until spring 2027,” six or more months late.

That would leave defense officials little time to obligate all that money. In years with longer CRs, the GAO has noted, “activities and programs can face bottlenecks, such as with the capacity of contracting offices to solicit and issue contracts or the ability of vendors to complete projects.”