Senate OKs massive defense bill under veto threat

Controversy surrounding the bill stems from the 2016 NDAA’s provisions that circumvent the defense spending caps enacted in 2011; keep open the detention facilities at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; and add $90 billion to the Pentagon’s overseas contingency operations account.

While the bill contains all the money Obama requested, he doesn’t like the way Congress did it. The bill increases defense spending by padding a separate war-fighting account with an extra $38 billion.

This bill is one of only a few bipartisan pieces of legislation to pass through Congress for more than 50 years. “In fact, Republicans and Democrats are engaged right now in negotiations to find a bipartisan budget deal that would provide sequestration relief”. The National Defense Authorization Act would authorize spending on military activities and construction, as well as for resources for active-duty military and veterans.

The bill requires the Secretary of Defense to establish and implement a process by which military commanders in the US can authorize certain personnel to carry a firearm.

“This veto threat is nothing more than an attempt to use our military as a pawn in a political game to increase controversial non-defense spending”, he said.

The bill also contains what is called a “sense of Congress” clause, expressing concern that Iran’s activities “justify continued pressure by the United States” and that as a result, the USA should continue to work with regional partners to counter Iranian threats.

The Senate voted Tuesday to advance the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which sets up a final vote later this week.

The 2 billion bill was approved 70-27, as several Democrats joined Republicans to form a veto-proof majority.

The White House has declared such a move unacceptable because although Obama would like to raise defense spending, he also wants to increase domestic spending by an equal amount – which is not addressed in a defense bill.

A report that accompanies the annual bill includes a recommendation, based on legislation drafted by Sen. Instead, he said, the president’s “ludicrous” approach is, “holding military men and women hostage to the whims of our dysfunctional politics”.

In a floor speech just before Wednesday’s vote, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, the Arizona senator who faced off against Obama for the presidency in 2008, fired back by calling Obama’s veto threat ‘foolish, misguided, cynical and unsafe’.

The Congressional Budget Office report says it’s the sixth consecutive drop in a row for the deficit, when measured against the size of the economy, since the $1.4 trillion deficit of Obama’s first term. The Obama Administration’s outright hostility to Democrats from energy-producing states (Hi, Mary!) has cost the Democrats in recent years, and with the lame duck presidency nearing its end, it’s only fitting that it goes all-in on moving away from traditional energy to untested alternative energies. “For him to veto what is fundamentally a budget bill, a policy bill, in the name of cost, is inappropriate”.