This week, the Senate Budget Committee is going to mark up its 2016 budget resolution, which will frame the nature of the defense funding debate for the year.
But it is a very fractious debate.
Deficit hawks are still a force in a Republican-controlled Congress. They want spending caps to remain.
Defense hawks want military spending caps lifted and Pentagon funding increased, a move opposed by Democrats who maintain that if caps are lifted, they should be lifted across government, not just at the Pentagon.
Military leaders last week drove home their case that budget cuts have taken their toll, and a return to full sequestration that would slice $35 billion from the administration's $534 billion 2016 request would be devastating.
After the 2012 election, Congress passed a temporary reprieve from full sequestration, affording DoD greater flexibility in making cuts. That deal expires at the end of the year.
Until a deal is struck, the best outcome is a more clear funding picture for the Pentagon so it can make better choices.
House and Senate leaders should learn a lesson from the recent fracas over funding the Department of Homeland Security. In that case, the outcome that pleased the majority of members was clear.
Here, there also is clarity. Most lawmakers oppose the defense cuts — and the domestic ones.
But there is no political path to increasing one while leaving cuts to the other in place. So congressional leaders should produce a budget resolution that raises defense and domestic spending caps by equal amounts.
That would allow defense authorizers and appropriators to begin crafting their 2016 bills with the kind of clarity needed to prepare for current and future threats in an uncertain world.
