By LISA MASCARO and KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The White House has formally requested $87.6 billion mostly to replenish the Pentagon after the\u00a0U.S. war against Iran<\/a>, submitting the request to Congress at a politically difficult time as Republican and Democratic\u00a0lawmakers have objected<\/a>\u00a0to any further military action.<\/p>\n The Office of Management and Budget sent the supplemental spending request on Wednesday. It arrived just hours after\u00a0President Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0assailed Republican senators\u00a0during a private lunch<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 engaging in a shouting match with one \u2014 over their votes to approve a\u00a0war powers resolution<\/a>\u00a0that would halt further hostilities.<\/p>\n The request is mostly for expenses incurred by the Defense Department as part of Operation Epic Fury, the U.S.-led attack on Iran. But it also includes a range of other items, including aid to American farmers, help for the Ebola crisis in Africa, and other needs closer to home, including restoration projects in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n \u201cI urge the Congress to take action on these important and urgent requests as soon as possible,\u201d said OMB Director Russ Vought in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear how quickly the House and Senate could act on the White House\u2019s request, or if Congress takes up the matter at all. The funding faces a difficult path because many lawmakers could view any votes as a reflection of test of their support for the war effort.<\/p>\n Yet the White House was clear to include provisions to interest lawmakers from various regions, including $1 billion to assist \u201cthe final design and construction of a modernized Penn Station in New York City,\u201d which would be of interest to the Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York.<\/p>\n The administration said it is requesting $67 billion for the Department of Defense for what it said were urgent needs related to the war against Iran, including \u201cfunding for military personnel and readiness expenses, operational costs to rebuild stocks.\u201d<\/p>\n It also wants $11.1 billion toward economic assistance for American farmers, $1.4 billion for the Ebola virus outbreak in Central Africa and requests $500 million to support ongoing efforts \u201cto complete restoration and construction projects in and around Washington, D.C.\u201d<\/p>\n The package also includes a collection of policy proposals that the administration strongly supports, and which are certain to raise interest among lawmakers.<\/p>\n Among them, the package proposes revisions to federal regulations of hemp products that have long been in dispute, changes to the year-round sales of renewable fuels and lifting of restrictions around federal investment support in Venezuela.<\/p>\n Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the lead Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the request is not merely to pay for \u201cthe president\u2019s disastrous war, but an attempt to secure tens of billions of additional dollars for unrelated Pentagon priorities that should rightly be considered through the annual appropriations process.\u201d<\/p>\n Murray added: \u201cI will closely review this request in its entirety and ensure we take care of our servicemembers, but I will not rubberstamp tens of billions more for this disastrous war of choice.\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Ca., who chairs the panel\u2019s subcommittee on Defense, said in a joint statement, \u201cPresident Trump\u2019s request reflects the reality that our defense strength must be maintained, not merely demonstrated.\u201d<\/p>\n The biggest share of defense funding, $21 billion, will go to weapons munitions, with another $17.3 billion for operational costs and $12.1 billion for other classified programs. Funds are also requested to cover fuel costs, drone manufacturing and cybersecurity.<\/p>\n The money for farmers would provide $10 billion in economic assistance to row and specialty crop farmers and $1.1 billion specifically to Florida agriculture producers who suffered losses from this past year\u2019s winter storms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By LISA MASCARO and KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The White House has formally requested $87.6…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132450,132452,139,141,140,132451],"class_list":["post-318723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-congressional-budget","tag-iran-war-cost","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-white-house-budget"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}