Defense Secretary Ash Carter says both the House and Senate versions of the National Defense Authorization Act are unacceptable, and if sent to the president without major changes, the Pentagon chief would recommend a veto.
The House-Senate Conference Committee has just begun the work of reconciling the two different versions of the bill, but both contain provisions that would trigger a veto, a threat Carter put in a letter to the committee.
The Pentagon’s biggest objection is to a House provision that would shift $18 billion from the wartime overseas contingency operations account to increase spending on manpower and equipment.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said the Defense Department has not requested money for those initiatives in part because it would also need additional funds to sustain those purchases, which he said ignores “the constrained resource environment we live in right now.”
But Cook said both the Senate and House bills “amount to excessive and unproductive micromanagement” of the Pentagon by overruling the judgment of senior civilian and uniformed leaders.
He pointed in particular to a provision in the Senate bill that would divide acquisition, technology and logistics functions into separate jobs.
Cook said there are many other issues in both bills that would trigger Carter’s veto request:
“Secretary Carter’s message to Congress reiterates that if legislation in the current form of either the House or the Senate bill is presented to the president, the secretary will recommend a veto of that legislation.”
The politics of defense funding continued to play out in Congress Thursday, when Senate Democrats blocked consideration of the defense appropriations bill.
An irate Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain took to the Senate floor to denounce the action.
“For pure, pure partisan and political reasons, we will not be moving forward to consider a bill to train, equip the men and women who are in the military, to give them their pay and benefits and defend this nation,” McCain railed.
“How do you do that in good conscience? … How in the world do you refuse to take up legislation that its only purpose is to defend this nation, which is under assault?”
Thornberry NDAA by Washington Examiner on Scribd
Mccain NDAA by Washington Examiner on Scribd
