House appropriators recommended the biggest variance from the administration request: a $9.2 billion cut for procurement programs and a $2.2 billion plus-up for research, development, test and evaluation. Discretionary research budgets came out ahead in all the defense bills so far: proposed increases of $2.2 billion by the HAC, $1.1 billion by the SASC, and $687.2 million by the HASC. Even without reconciliation, all the budget proposals released by congressional defense committees so far sign off on a $1.1 trillion discretionary budget request, which is around $242 billion more than the FY26 base budget and $91 billion more than the total FY26 enacted level.