Bloomberg Surveillance · Monday, July 27, 2026
Tobin Marcus anticipates a status quo outcome for the base defense budget, with low single-digit growth, despite proposals for much larger figures. He believes a bipartisan supplemental is unlikely, and only a modest amount of funding, around $60-65 billion, will pass through reconciliation, making it challenging to address issues like munition stockpiles.
“Yeah, on the defense funding front, I think we're in for a relatively unexciting outcome. I mean, we've seen these very large numbers thrown around the President proposing a total budget of one point five trillion dollars. We're not going to come anywhere closet to that.”
“I think the base defense budget we're going to get a basically status quo outcome kind of low single digit growth that's out of the biparisan negotiations that will eventually kind of pick up in the Senate.”
“But getting the funding to like really structurally change that I think will be very challenging.”