National defense would see a 1% increase in spending this fiscal year under a Pentagon policy bill that also gives double-digit pay increases to about half of the service members.
The measure is traditionally strongly bipartisan, but not this year as some Democratic lawmakers protest the inclusion of a ban on transgender medical treatments for children of military members if such treatment could lead to sterilization.
The bill is expected to pass the House of Representatives on Wednesday and then move to the Senate, where lawmakers had sought a larger increase in defense spending than the $895.2 billion authorized in the compromise that lay before them.
Lawmakers are touting the 14.5% pay increase for junior military personnel and a 4.5% raise for others as key to improving the quality of life for those serving in the U.S. military. Those who serve as junior enlisted personnel are at pay ranges that generally correspond to their first term of service.
Lawmakers said their wages have failed to remain competitive with the private sector, forcing many military families to rely on food banks and government assistance programs to put food on the table. The bill also provides significant new funding for child care and housing.
“No military member should have to live in squalid conditions and no military family should have to rely on food stamps to feed their children, but that is exactly what many of our service members are experiencing, especially junior service members,” said Rep. Mike Rogers. , R-Ala., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. “This bill goes a long way to fixing that.”
The bill establishes key Pentagon policies that lawmakers will seek to fund through a follow-up bill. The total expenditure follows the figures determined in 2023 agreement that then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached a deal with President Joe Biden to expand the country’s borrowing power and avoid a federal bankruptcy in exchange for spending curbs. Many senators had wanted to increase defense spending by about $25 billion above what was called for in that agreement, but those efforts failed.
Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., who is expected to serve as the next chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the overall level of spending was a “tremendous loss to our national defense,” although he agreed with many provisions within the Senate. account.
“We must make a generational investment to deter the Axis Attackers. I will not stop working with my colleagues in Congress, the Trump Administration and others until we achieve this,” Wicker said.
House Republicans do not want to go above the McCarthy-Biden agreement on defense spending and want to go well below that on many non-defense programs.
They also focus on cultural issues. The bill bans funding for teaching critical race theory in the military and prohibits TRICARE health plans from covering gender dysphoria treatment for children under 18 that could lead to sterilization.
Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, a ranking Democratic member of the House Armed Services Committee, said minors dealing with gender dysphoria are a “very real problem.” He said available treatments, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy, have proven effective in helping young people cope with suicidal thoughts, anxiety and depression.
“These treatments have changed their lives and in many cases saved their lives,” Smith said. “And in this bill we have decided that we are going to deny the children of military personnel access to that.”
Smith said the number of minors in families of service members receiving transgender medical care is in the thousands. He said he could have supported a study asking medical experts to determine whether such treatments are overused, but a ban on health insurance went too far. He said Chairman Mike Johnson’s office pushed for the ban.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, called the ban a step in the right direction, saying, “I think these questions need to be taken out of the defense debate so we can get back to defending the United States of America. America without having to deal with social engineering debates.”
Smith said he agrees with Roy that lawmakers should focus on the military and not on cultural conflicts, “and yet here it is in this bill.”
Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives, said his team did not tell the Democrat how to vote on the bill. He said he was still evaluating the legislation Wednesday morning.
“There are a lot of positive things in the National Defense Authorization Act that were negotiated in a bipartisan manner, and there are also some troubling provisions in a few areas,” Jeffries said.
The defense policy bill also appears to strengthen deterrence against China. It calls for investing $15.6 billion in building military capabilities in the Indo-Pacific region. The Biden administration had requested about $10 billion.
On Israel, the bill includes an expansion of joint US military exercises with Israel and a ban on the Pentagon citing data on Hamas casualties.
The defense policy bill is one of the last measures lawmakers see as a must before making way for a new Congress in January. The Senate is expected to pass the legislation next week. It would then head to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law.
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