Start over this year. They took up where they left off last year, house and Senate Appropriators got together and put together a package and the house is expected to vote on that tomorrow send it over to the senate and well see what happens. Were reading some of your reporting ahead of the debate in the u. S. House. Headlined, appropriators unveiled. Costlier Pentagon Spending unveiled. Its about 578 billion all together. You add some money in the continuing resolution that almost all the government is operating on right now, theres 6 billion in there and overseas money, 584 billion is about the total amount theyll get for fiscal 2017 for this bill. Thats about 2 more than they got in fiscal 2016, not quite enough to keep pace with inflation probably, treading water in other wards. Not a cut, which you hear a lot of people claiming is happening for the pentagon. What about for the u. S. Presence overseas, our war funding with that overseas Contingency Operation fund. Is that going up in this 2017 bill . Yes. Slightly. Its about 62 billion of that 580 billion total. Its a huge element of it. Theres a lot of programs that should be in the socalled base budget, but are being tucked into the war budget, that way they dont have to worry about increasing the cap for defense spending, its a safety valve, and has been for a number of years. Tell us about the House Republican strategy to pass this defense bill, and how they might use that or will they use it to pass the other 10 spending bills for the year . This is where its going to get interesting, the continuing resolution thats funding the pentagon and most other agencies runs through april 28th, it allows them to keep funding on auto pilot, just like they were in 2016, with a few exceptions. April 28 season coming up real fast. Theres only 10 legislative days in april. Theres dwindling amount of time they have, and they have nine other preparations bills that they need to, in addition to the defense bill, they need to take care of in a short amount of time. And if the theres a lot of people a lot of republicans in the house that are fine with only funding the pentagon. And so they say that they the Republican Leadership says they want to fund these nondefense bills, well see how many of them go over to the senate. Now, the Senate Democrats are not going to be very happy about funding only the pentagon or funding the pentagon and then maybe one or two other agencies and putting the rest of the government on a continuing resolution for the rest of the year. They are going to really dig in their heels over there. Were going to have a game of chicken coming up in the next few weeks. Lets talk about 2018 spending coming up. What do you see shaping up for the defense debate in 2016. The administration is talking about putting forth a 2017 supplemental with some readiness money and war money. How that fits in with the defense bill and the process is to be determined. Its arriving kind of late in the process. Well get a little outline in a week or two, but the full request wont come over until may trump is talking about the 54 billion increase well see. The democrats are going to demand some defense slashing to pay for the increase. Theyre going to make every dollar that defense increase hard to come by. C. Q. Roll call. You can follow him on twitter at john m. Donley. Up next, a look at the relationship between the u. S. And mexico. And the challenges of border sharing