The Senate passed an $886 billion defense bill that includes a pay raise for military personnel despite rising Republican opposition.
The new bill would set Pentagon policy and increase salaries for military personnel by 5.2%. It is seen as going against the demands of far-right Republicans. The latter has tried and failed to attach a raft of deeply partisan restrictions on abortion, transgender care, and diversity initiatives.
National Defense Authorization Act
The vote for the new defense bill was 87 to 13 and it would expand the Defense Department's ability to compete with China and Russia over hypersonic and nuclear weapons, implement components of a key Indo-Pacific security partnership with Australia and Britain, and direct hundreds of millions of dollars in military assistance to Israel and Ukraine.
The Israel and Ukraine programs authorized by the bill differ from a $111 billion spending bill that would provide additional weapons to those two nations, among other expenditures currently stalled in Congress, as per the New York Times.
Furthermore, the bill would extend a program allowing the intelligence community to conduct warrantless surveillance of foreign individuals outside the United States into 2025. This has come under scrutiny due to how the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has handled the communications of Americans in touch with foreigners.
Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate have championed the bill as a fair compromise. They said it prioritizes competition with adversaries and demonstrates support for the United States' allies.
Some have also argued that it sends a particularly important message as the world faces global threats. This is particularly true as Republican lawmakers have blocked congressional efforts to approve tens of billions of dollars in emergency military aid for Israel and Ukraine.
Bipartisan Support for the Defense Bill
A summary of the bill from the Republican-led House Armed Services Committee also showed that the measure would put into place a watchdog. According to CNN, it would oversee US aid to Ukraine by using a special inspector general and setting up a collection of government records on unidentified strange phenomena at the National Archives.
Schumer argued that passing the NDAA enables the United States to hold the line against Russia, stand firm against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and ensure the country's defense remains state of the art at all times.
Following the Senate vote, the bill would now go to the House, where some ultraconservative Republican lawmakers have threatened to tank it. These came after officials dropped contentious provisions that would have modified the Pentagon's abortion policy and some gender-affirming health care.
The recently passed bill is a compromise version of the spending bill that the House passed earlier this year. The previous version included provisions that target transgender healthcare policies in the Pentagon and an amendment that would revoke a policy that reimburses out-of-state travel for service members who receive abortions, said USA Today.
