title: Key lawmaker calls Trump defense budget request low
text: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee called President Donald Trump’s reported $603 billion defense budget request low on Monday, a sign of the fight ahead between Trump’s party and Democrats, who oppose slashing non-military spending to boost Pentagon funding. “Over the course of the Obama Administration, our military funding was cut 20 percent while the world grew more dangerous. While we cannot repair all of the damage done by those cuts in a single year, we can and should do more than this level of funding will allow,” Representative Mac Thornberry said in a statement. “The administration will have to make clear which problems facing our military they are choosing not to fix,” he said. It was not immediately clear why Thornberry alluded to a $603 billion figure.  