As GOP debates defense spending, Air Force chief pushes for supplemental, $1.5T budget

LONDON — The war against Iran has strained the Air Force’s budget, and the US military needs “all three” Trump administration military spending proposals — a base budget of $1.1 trillion, a reconciliation boost of $350 billion and a multibillion-dollar supplemental package — to keep its edge, the Air Force’s top officer told Breaking Defense. “Here’s the dilemma: In 2026, we executed and are executing Epic Fury. Wasn’t budgeted for. So what we’re doing is, we’re cash flowing payments to pay for Epic Fury, and the way that we’ve cash flowed is, we have stopped spending money on other things that needed to be done this year,” Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach said in an interview on the sidelines of the Global Air & Space Chiefs Conference here. “There’s a wide array of things that we have stopped spending money on so that we could pay for the bills that are associated with Epic Fury,” he continued, referring to the Pentagon’s nomenclature for combat operations in Iran. “That’s why you need a supplemental for this year.” Wilsbach did not describe where the Air Force has shifted money from, but a recent $4.3 billion Pentagon reprogramming request for “unforeseen military requirements” offers some clues. According to the document, the Defense Department plans to cut $1.5 billion from the Air Force, including a reduction of $774 million from aircraft procurement programs and $99 million from personnel accounts. (The document does not mentioned Epic Fury, and some spending shifts may not be associated with the conflict.) The Air Force declined to discuss specific cuts. “We are using all resources available to ensure we are supporting operations and maintaining readiness within the limits of the budget,” an Air Force spokesperson said in a statement to Breaking Defense. Trump administration officials have floated a $67 billion supplemental spending package to pay the Iran war’s bills and other defense programs, though its fate now seems in doubt. On Wednesday, House GOP leaders unveiled a new reconciliation package that includes $60 billion for defense spending — a figure that falls short of the administration’s request, and signals that the White House’s dream of a $1.5 trillion defense budget in fiscal 2027 is “effectively dead,” budget expert Todd Harrison at the American Enterprise Institute previously told Breaking Defense. The $350 billion blueprint for reconciliation spending released by the Pentagon earlier this year would surge cash for top priorities like munitions production — where stockpiles have been stressed by the Iran war — drone manufacturing, and shoring up the industrial base. Failure to pass a reconciliation package could also imperil key administration priorities like the Golden Dome missile defense shield, as well as procurement of platforms like the F-35 stealth fighter. Wilsbach, for his part, asserted the total $1.5 trillion figure is essential for the Air Force to sustain operations and modernize. Without it, he said priorities like readi…