The Senate voted against two amendments to change the fiscal 2017 defense spending limit on Thursday, keeping the bill’s top line at $610 billion.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., introduced an amendment to the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act that would have added $18 billion to the overseas contingency operations account that would primarily go toward additional ship and aircraft purchases.
McCain’s amendment failed on a 56-42 vote that did not break along party lines. Thirteen Democrats voted for the proposal to boost only defense spending, while 11 Republicans, including three members of the Senate Budget Committee, voted against it.
Ahead of the vote, McCain said on the floor that those who vote against the proposal are “hypocritical” if they continue to say they love and support the military.
Democrats rejected the proposal because it added money above the budget caps to the defense without a comparable increase in domestic spending.
Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., introduced a second-order amendment to McCain’s that would have added the $18 billion for defense plus an additional $18 billion for domestic priorities like infrastructure updates and scientific research.
The Reed amendment also failed on a 43-55 vote. Two Republicans voted for the proposal: Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio. Three Democrats voted against it: Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Sen. Jon Tester of Montana.
With the failure of both amendments, the House and Senate will likely be reconciling two defense policy bills in conference with the same top line but very different funding mechanisms.
The Senate’s bill without the McCain amendment doesn’t fund priorities from the services that didn’t make it into the president’s budget request, but leaves the overseas account intact to cover a year of operations. The House bill, however, uses more of the war chest for these unfunded base priorities, but leaving only money to support overseas operations through April.
