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The Biden administration is preparing to ask Congress for the largest Pentagon budget in history, according to the Defense Department’s chief financial officer, as partisan squabbling over the debt ceiling raises the specter of deep cuts to the military’s funding plans.

Officials are “very close” to settling on a final topline number for the Defense Department, which the White House will include as part of its overall fiscal 2024 budget request set for release on March 9, Pentagon Comptroller Michael McCord said in an interview, POLITICO reported.

“I do expect it will be a bigger number than Congress provided last year,” McCord said. While he declined to give details about the proposal since it’s still in flux, he said the Pentagon will invest in munitions to replenish U.S. stockpiles and support the continued fight in Ukraine, where both sides are expending thousands of rounds a day.

In December, lawmakers appropriated $858 billion in national defense funding — $45 billion more than Biden sought. That included $817 billion for the Pentagon, and billions more for nuclear weapons development through the Energy Department and other national security programs.

At the time, it was the most the U.S. had ever spent on the Defense Department, reflecting the Pentagon’s efforts to simultaneously counter the threat from Russia, keep pace with China’s growing technological advantage, modernize aging arsenals and fight inflation.