Adding Reconciliation, Space Force Budget Tops $40 Billion in FY2026

DOD released additional information about its FY2026 budget request today. Although funding included in reconciliation bills historically has been treated separately from appropriations, the White House is combining them. From that perspective, the request for the U.S. Space Force will be more than $40 billion instead of the $26.3 billion in the FY2026 request itself.

Congressional authorizers and appropriators of both parties have been lamenting the lack of detail about DOD’s FY2026 request. The Trump Administration didn’t submit a full budget request until May 30 and although it included comprehensive information on other departments and agencies, DOD’s was minimal.

The DOD Comptroller’s office posted an additional layer today for accounts like Military Personnel, Operation and Maintenence (O&M), Procurement, and Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E), but not all of the service-specific documentation. The link to the Air Force budget request, which includes the Air Force and the Space Force, is still for FY2025.

The Administration champions its request as the first $1 trillion defense budget of which $961.6 billion is for DOD.  That figure comprises a baseline request of $848.3 billion plus $113.3 billion of the $150 billion for DOD included in the “One Big Beautiful” reconciliation bill (H.R 1) working its way through Congress. Historically, money provided in reconciliation bills is on top of whatever is provided in appropriations bills, not combined with it. Reconciliation is separate from appropriations. Appropriators have no control over it and they don’t factor it into their deliberations. They’re pushing back on the Administration’s notion of kluging them together — “one budget, two bills” as the Administration calls it.

By itself, the FY2026 request for the Space Force is $26.3 billion. The House Appropriations Committee increased that by $3 billion when they marked up the bill on June 12.

The documentation released today underscores that looking at it through the Trump Administration’s lens, however, the request is $40.1 billion. Of that, $13.8 billion is through reconciliation.

If the reconciliation bill includes that much when it ultimately is signed into law, that might be good news for FY2026, but it’s only for one year. After that the Space Force would be back to the baseline level of $26.3 billion. Defense spending has broad bipartisan support and House and Senate appropriators and authorizers are concerned about what will happen in FY2027 and beyond.

The $25 billion for President Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense shield is in the reconciliation bill.

The reconciliation process circumvents the Senate filibuster, requiring only a simple majority instead of 60 votes to pass, and thus usually represents partisan preferences. At a hearing today on the requests for the Air Force and Space Force, Senate Appropriations Committee Defense Subcommittee chair Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Ranking Member Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) both expressed concern that putting bipartisan priorities into a reconciliation bill risks a “shell game” that will avoid needed annual investments for the future.

The reconciliation process was established by the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 to help ensure that total federal spending —  discretionary spending (set every year by appropriations for departments and agencies like DOD and NASA) plus mandatory spending (set by underpinning legislation that establishes eligibility for programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Veterans Benefits, as well as interest on the national debt) — abides by limits set by Budget Resolutions the House and Senate are supposed to pass every year.  Funding covers a 10-year window, but does not need to be spent equally over that period of time.

 

This article has been updated.