US House passes $619bn military budget
The US House of Representatives has easily passed President Barack Obama’s requested military budget of $618.7 billion for the next fiscal year, allowing the Pentagon to increase payments as well as the number of active duty forces.
The lawmakers on Friday showed strong bipartisan support for the annual defense policy bill, voting 375-34 to authorize it.
The massive bill put the Pentagon’s base budget at $559.2 billion, while allowing it to take another $59.5 billion from a war fund named the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account.
The bill also instructed the government to spend $8.3 billion, $3.2 billion more than what Obama had requested, to raise pay and increase troops among other purposes.
He had proposed a 1.6-percent raise for the troops, but the House pushed it up to 2.1 percent.
The lawmakers also voted to increase the end strength across various services. According to the bill, the Army should keep its troops above 476,000 in 2017. The figure was set at 321,000 troops for the Air Force and 185,000 for the Marines Corps.
In May, the House of Representatives passed the bill for 2016 in a 277-147 vote.
Back then, the Democrats fiercely opposed the idea of using the OCO for military spending, arguing that it would weaken the US military in conflict zones abroad.
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter went as far as describing the strategy as a “road to nowhere,” while the White House threatened to veto it.
On Friday, however, many of the Democrats were in favor of the bill, with Representative Adam Smith of Washington calling it an “excellent product.”
“It prioritizes the men and women who serve in the military to try to make we provide for them, give them all the training they need and all the support they need so that when we ask them to something they are trained and ready to do it,” said Smith, a ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee.
Before reaching Obama’s desk, the bill needs to be approved by the Senate, which will vote on it next week.
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