WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate will vote Wednesday on final passage of a sweeping defense bill that would authorize significant pay increases for junior service members and increase overall military spending to $895 billion, while also expanding coverage of transgender medical treatments for children of military members will be cut. .
The annual defense authorization bill typically receives strong bipartisan support and has failed to pass Congress for nearly six decades, but Pentagon policy has become a battleground for cultural issues in recent years. Republicans sought to address priorities for social conservatives in legislation this year, contributing to months of negotiations over the bill and a decline in Democratic support.
Still, all but a handful of Senate Democrats — as well as nearly all Republicans — have supported the process to bring the compromise legislation to a final vote.
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“The NDAA is not perfect. It doesn’t have everything either side would want. It contains some provisions that we Democrats would not have added and other provisions that we would like to leave out entirely,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “But of course you need two parties to get this through the finish line.”
In the House of Representatives, a majority of Democrats voted against the bill last week after House Speaker Mike Johnson pushed to add a provision to ban the military health care system from providing transgender medical care to children. The legislation passed easily by a vote of 281 to 140.
Senate Republican leaders argued that the 1% increase in defense spending was not enough, especially at a time of global unrest and challenges to U.S. dominance. Senate Republicans had called for a generational boost in defense spending this year, but are planning a new push for more defense funding once they control the White House and Congress next year.
The annual defense authorization bill guides key Pentagon policies, but would still need to be backed by an appropriations package.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said in a speech this week that without the revenue increase, “key provisions of the law such as a pay increase for enlisted soldiers will come at the expense of investments in critical weapons systems and munitions that deter and sustain conflict.” ” safe.”
The legislation provides for a 14.5% pay increase for junior military personnel and a 4.5% increase for others. Lawmakers said these are critical to improving the quality of life for service members at a time when many military families rely on food banks and other government assistance programs to make ends meet.
“It includes important quality of life improvements, improving things like child care, housing, medical services, employment support for military spouses and much more,” said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The legislation also focuses resources on a more confrontational approach to China, including establishing a fund that could be used to send military resources to Taiwan, in much the same way the U.S. has supported Ukraine. It is also investing in new military technologies, including artificial intelligence, and boosting U.S. munitions production.
The US has also taken steps in recent years to ban the military from buying Chinese products, and the defense bill expanded that to include a ban on Chinese goods, from garlic in military commissaries to drone technology.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry responded to this move last week by calling the bans laughable.
“I don’t think it would ever occur to garlic that it would pose a ‘major threat’ to the US,” said Mao Ning, a ministry spokeswoman. “From drones to faucets, from refrigerators to garlic, more and more Chinese-made products are being accused by the US of ‘posing national security risks’. But has the US shown any credible evidence or reason to support these allegations?
But in Congress, Republican and Democratic lawmakers are largely united in their view that China poses a growing threat. Instead, it was culture war issues that divided lawmakers over the bill, which was negotiated for months.
The Republican-controlled House had passed a version of the bill in June that would have banned the Defense Department’s policy of reimbursing costs for service members traveling to another state for an abortion, ending gender-affirming care for transgender troops and diversity initiatives in the country. the army.
Most of these provisions did not make it into the final package, although Republicans expect Donald Trump to make sweeping changes to Pentagon policy when he takes office in January.
The bill also continues to ban funding for teaching critical race theory in the military and prohibits TRICARE health plans from covering gender dysphoria treatment for children under 18 if that treatment could result in “sterilization.”
For some Democrats, the ban on treatments for transgender children — care they say could be lifesaving — was a red line.
In a speech, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., said she has always voted for the NDAA but would not do so this year. She said the policy change for transgender children would affect between 6,000 and 7,000 families, according to estimates her office has received.
“The NDAA has embodied the idea that there is more that brings us together than divides us, that our service members and national defense should not be politicized. That we give our country a party when the chips are on the table,” she said. “Unfortunately, that was ignored this year – all to undermine the rights of our service members to the health care they need for their children.”
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Associated Press writer Didi Tang contributed to this report.
