Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker is pushing to boost national security spending through normal budgetary channels heading into the next fiscal year, warning that defense priorities are “far from paid for” under the House-passed reconciliation text.
The Mississippi Republican called the bill “a start” but rejected the notion that the administration’s proposed $1 trillion fiscal 2026 defense budget, a plan that hinges the bulk of its Defense Department spending increase on the passage of the reconciliation package, would be sufficient to enhance U.S. military capabilities. “There are some members of the administration who thought we would be delighted with the $1 trillion. That’s not the way we viewed it,” he told reporters during a June 4 Defense Writers Group event. “We need a steady increase in terms of the baseline year after year after year to get where we need to get, and we need to get [military spending] to 5 percent of gross domestic product.”
Getting to Congress: Wicker developed an early affinity for Congress in 1967, working as a Senate page assigned to the GOP desk. He has credited the experience with cementing his commitment to the Republican Party. In college, he was elected student body president and served as a delegate at the 1972 Republican National Convention, where he met a young Mississippian making his first bid for Congress — future Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. That connection proved pivotal to Wicker’s own political future.
