Senate moves ahead on defense bill facing veto threat

Congress is set to approve the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) later this week – the massive bill that sets the annual budget for the Department of Defense – but the White House says President Barack Obama will veto the 2 billion piece of legislation because of the unorthodox way it would fund the Pentagon. Instead, this bill funds almost $38 billion to the Defense Department by dipping into an account meant to be reserved for overseas operations during wartime.

U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Fairhope, who represents the area, accused the president of playing politics over defense spending in a floor speech shortly before the bill passed the House last week.

Republicans are not expected to muster the two-thirds vote that would be needed in both chambers to override an Obama veto as Democrats say they will be less likely to support it in the event of a showdown with the White House.

Voting yes were 20 Democrats, 49 Republicans and 1 independent.

“As conflict spreads throughout the Middle East, we need a military that is strong, ready, and well-equipped”, Thune said. “But I am going to miss votes, I’m running for president…” The national defense act, separate from the actual defense appropriations bill, authorizes numerous benefit and equipment programs for the military. “It is absurd to veto the NDAA for something that the NDAA cannot do”, said Sen.

-authorizes $600 million for the beleaguered U.S.-led program to train and equip moderate elements of the Syrian opposition force, but requires the defense secretary to get congressional approval each time he wants to use money for the program.

But Obama has said he could not support it because it increases the war-fighting account, raising defense spending by doing an end-run around spending caps. Come to think of it, in a flawless world, the Obama administration would never have countenanced the sequester’s trade-off between domestic and military spending on the (mistaken) bet that Republicans cared so much about the latter that they would agree to more of the former.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the president vetoing the bill would be “yet another grave foreign policy miscalculation”, and touted the bill’s ability to help the United States fight the self-proclaimed Islamic State.

Obama opposes the bill because it allows defense spending to sidestep the cuts to the defense budget dictated by the across-the-board sequestration, which went into effect in 2013 after Congress and the White House failed to agree on budget-reducing measures.

Obama has repeatedly threatened to veto the act because it leaves in place spending caps known as sequestration.

Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton said the legislation “rightly gives our military additional funding to ensure our national-security strategy can once again begin to drive our military budget, rather than the budget setting our strategy”. “But I believe we can build enough pressure to force their hand if we work to raise awareness”.