WASHINGTON — House Armed Services Committee members next week must decide whether to accept a subpanel's recommendation to clear the Marine Corps to buy more F-35 fighters next year.

HASC Tactical Air and Land Forces subcommittee aides say their portion of the 2016 Nnational Ddefense Aauthorization Aact (NDAA) proposes more than the six B model F-35s the Marines requested.

The aides described the idea as, for now, just "a proposal to the full committee." The entire HASC will convene next Wednesday to mark up its 2016 NDAA, and the F-35B issue will be among a list of unresolved subcommittee proposals and member amendments on the crowded docket.

Complete coverage of the 2016 budget

Because of defense spending caps put in place by the 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA), any proposals to add any number of platforms beyond the number requested by a service means the amount of the additional buy must be offset by cutting something else within the Pentagon's budget.

Finding potential offsets within a nearly $500 billion budget is not a difficult mathematical practice. But it can be a tough political task.

"Maybe some of the other subcommittees will give us some of their money and we can have even more fun here," Tactical Tactial Air and Land subcommittee rRanking Democrat Loretta Sanchez of California said Thursday during the subpanel's brief mark up session.

The aides cast all program-specific funding levels and platform unit numbers merely as "proposals" from HASC's six subcommittees to the full committee, and not publicly releasable.

The Marine Corps included six additional Lockheed Martin-made short-takeoff-and-vertical landing (STOVL) F-35Bs on its 2016 "unfunded requirements" list, which it submitted to Congress earlier this year.

Email: jbennett@defensenews.com

Twitter: @bennettjohnt

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