The fiscal year 2017 defense policy bill is heading to President Obama’s desk after the Senate overwhelmingly passed the bill on Thursday.
The Senate easily passed the National Defense Authorization Act, in a 92-7 vote, which would authorize $618.7 billion in the military spending in the current fiscal year. That includes $67.8 billion in an overseas contingency operations account meant to pay for wartime operations abroad.
That top line is $3.2 billion more than what the president asked for in fiscal year 2017, which could be an issue for the White House since there is no comparable increase in spending on non-defense. A boost in defense spending without spending more on non-defense was what prompted President Obama’s veto of the defense policy bill in 2016.
But Democrats in the House and Senate did not see the funding issue as enough of a reason to not support the bill this year. The House passed it last week by a 375-34 vote, more than enough to override a presidential veto if needed.
The White House issued veto threats on the versions of the bill passed by the House and Senate this year, but has not yet said whether it will sign the compromise bill released this month. Given the numbers in both the House and Senate votes, Obama’s veto would easily be overridden.
The bill also authorizes a 2.1 percent pay raise for troops, as well as a boost in the active duty end strength of the Army, Air Force and Marines, but does not fund the additional F-35s and littoral combat ships in the House version of the legislation.
It also includes some of the biggest organizational changes since the Goldwater-Nichols Act 30 years ago, like a restructuring of the Pentagon’s acquisition shop and a cap on the number of National Security Council staff.
