Congress is poised to do something extraordinary this year: Rise above almost two decades of partisan squabbles over defense policy and send to President Obama annual policy legislation in time for it to actually become law before the fiscal year starts Oct. 1.
Obama has threatened to veto the bill, as President George W. Bush did in 2007 amid a dispute involving Iraqi assets in the United States. But if the bill goes to his desk by the end of July as its sponsors expect, there’s still time to resolve differences for it to become law by Oct. 1 for the first time since the fiscal 1997 bill was enacted in September 1996.
The Senate passed its version of the bill Thursday, and the House bill passed on May 15. Republican leaders who control both chambers expect to be able to resolve differences over the legislation and have a final version to Obama before the August recess as part of their plan to restore regular order to the broken process of authorizing and allocating federal spending.
The legislation doesn’t end the ongoing partisan warfare over federal spending that led to deep mandatory sequestration cuts for defense being enacted in a 2011 law that have caused what military leaders say are dangerous gaps in readiness. Instead, Republican leaders crafted a temporary solution: shifting $38 billion in funding for regular operations and maintenance to a war account that falls outside mandatory spending caps.
It’s that solution, which Democrats call a “gimmick,” that has drawn the White House veto threat. On Thursday, after the authorization bill passed, Senate Democrats held up the accompanying appropriations bill over its use of war funding to increase defense spending. But Republicans argue that it’s the most politically feasible solution in a world that’s too dangerous to wait for the perfect option.
“I would like to follow the advice of every one of our military leaders who say that continued sequestration puts the lives of the men and women who are serving in the military in greater danger,” said Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., lead sponsor of the bill in that chamber, who has argued forcefully — and unsuccessfully — for an end to sequestration since it took effect.
“To get hung up on the method of funding … seems to me an upside-down set of priorities — badly upside-down. If we don’t fund, if we don’t authorize, if we don’t make possible for us to equip and train and retain the finest military force in the world, why is it a higher priority to object to the method of funding?”
Though congressional Democrats backed off their efforts to block the bill on that basis, shifting their fight to the appropriations bill, the administration appears to be digging in on its demand for a permanent solution to the Pentagon’s budget crisis.
“I support that,” Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said when pressed by Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., about Obama’s veto threat at a House hearing on Wednesday.
“I haven’t changed my view. We need a multiyear defense budget,” he said. “This business where we have a budget one year at a time … I’m just telling you it’s very damaging to the institution I feel responsible for and I am responsible for.”
But Obama has threatened to veto the bill before, and backed down.
In December 2011, the president withdrew his veto threat and reluctantly signed the fiscal 2012 authorization bill after months of fighting over the handling of suspected terrorists, especially those who are U.S. citizens. Obama backed down after it became clear the bill had broad bipartisan support.
The president also has threatened to veto the legislation in past years over provisions designed to prevent the closure of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or the transfer of detainees to the United States, but has allowed them to become law in spite of his longtime goal to close the facility.
A White House statement of administration policy issued June 2 on the Senate bill noted that the measure imposes new restrictions designed to put the brakes on the increasing rate of detainee releases from Guantanamo to other countries, which Obama opposes.
“Not only would provisions of the bill extend existing restrictions, they would impose additional unwise and unnecessary ones that would further impede efforts to responsibly close the facility,” the statement said.
With U.S. troops back in action in Iraq and other global threats increasing, GOP lawmakers say they’re counting on public pressure to get the president to back down again.
“The very idea that the president of the United States would veto the defense authorization bill in light of everything that’s going on around the world today is a reckless, irresponsible strategy on his part,” said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.
