House Passes $1.15 Trillion Defense Spending Bill
The NDAA itself would allocate more than $1 trillion to the Department of Defense (DoD), as well as roughly $40 billion to the Department of Energy to oversee the U.S.’s nuclear arsenal and more than $10 billion for other matters related to the military. The package also contains a provision that stipulates that service members will receive a pay raise.
Earlier this year, the President proposed increasing DoD spending to $1.5 trillion—an increase of about $600 billion from last year.
In previous years, Congress has generally approved the annual defense bill with widespread support across the political aisle. But this year, the measure has become snarled in tensions over defense spending levels and the SAVE America Act.
On June 30, several House Republicans stalled progress on the NDAA and other legislative priorities in an effort to push for stronger action on the SAVE America Act. The standstill stemmed, in part, from the House rule that would have attached the restrictive voter ID legislation with the NDAA after it passed the lower chamber; one GOP lawmaker called the rule a “procedural head fake,” arguing that the Senate could detach the SAVE America Act from the defense bill. The bloc of House Republicans who rebelled against the move called on the party to take more radical steps to pass Trump’s restrictive voter ID law.
