WASHINGTON -- The Senate passed a defense bill Wednesday that authorizes significant pay raises for junior enlisted service members, aims to counter China's growing power and boosts overall military spending to $895 billion while also stripping coverage of transgender medical treatments for children of military members.
The annual defense authorization bill usually draws strong bipartisan support and has not failed to pass Congress in nearly six decades, but the Pentagon policy measure in recent years has become a battleground for cultural issues. Republicans this year sought to tack on to the legislation priorities for social conservatives, contributing to a months-long negotiation over the bill and a falloff in support from Democrats.
Still, the bill passed comfortably 85-14, sending it to President Joe Biden. Eleven senators who caucus with Democrats, as well as three Republicans, voted against the legislation.
The bill "isn't perfect, but it still includes some very good things that Democrats fought for," said Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., in a floor speech. "It has strong provisions to stand up against the Chinese Communist Party here on a national security basis."
Both of Arkansas' Republican senators voted in favor of the measure.
"Providing for our national defense is one of Congress' primary responsibilities, particularly at an incredibly volatile time around the globe," said Sen. John Boozman, adding that the bill supports military families, improves recruitment efforts and deters enemy threats.
"Our troops pledge their lives to the defense of our nation, and this bill gives them more support to perform that vital mission," said Sen. Tom Cotton. Both lawmakers noted that the bill funds improvements at Ebbing Air National Guard Base in Fort Smith.
BIPARTISAN DISAPPOINTMENT
In the House, a majority of Democrats voted against the bill last week after House Speaker Mike Johnson insisted on adding the provision to ban the military health system from providing transgender medical care for children. The legislation easily passed by a vote of 281-140.
Senate Republican leaders argued that its 1% increase for defense spending was not enough, especially at a time of global unrest and challenges to American dominance. Senate Republicans had argued for a generational boost to defense spending this year, but are planning another push for more defense funding once they control the White House and Congress next year.
"We are currently experiencing the most dangerous national security moments since World War II," said Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, who will chair the Senate Armed Services Committee next year. He has pushed for larger boosts to defense funding that would break spending caps that were agreed to in the bipartisan deal to suspend the nation's debt ceiling last year.
The annual defense authorization bill directs key Pentagon policy, but it would still need to be backed up with an appropriations package.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said in a floor speech this week that without the topline increase "major bill provisions like a pay raise for enlisted servicemembers will come at the expense of investments in the critical weapons systems and munitions that deter conflict and keep them safe."
The legislation provides for a 14.5% pay raise for junior enlisted service members and a 4.5% increase for others. Lawmakers said those were key to improving the quality of life of service members at a time when many military families rely on food banks and other government assistance programs to make ends meet.
"It includes major quality of life improvements, enhancing things like childcare, housing, medical services, employment support for military spouses and much more," said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Tucked into the defense bill was also a provision to eliminate a roughly $100-a-month cut in unemployment and sickness benefits for 200,000 rail workers nationwide. The benefits are entirely paid for through workers' wages but got caught up in previous budget cuts. In a rare move, the railroads joined with their unions to lobby for the change.
CHINA FOCUS
The legislation also directs resources toward a more confrontational approach to China, including establishing a fund that could be used to send military resources to Taiwan in much the same way that the U.S. has backed Ukraine. It also invests in new military technologies, including artificial intelligence, and bolsters the U.S. production of ammunition.
The U.S. has also moved in recent years to ban the military from purchasing Chinese products, and the defense bill extended that with prohibitions on Chinese goods from garlic in military commissaries to drone technology.
The Chinese foreign ministry responded to that move last week by calling the bans laughable.
"I don't think it could ever occur to garlic that it would pose a 'major threat' to the U.S.," said Mao Ning, a ministry spokeswoman. "From drones to cranes, from refrigerators to garlic, more and more Chinese-made products have been accused by the US of 'posing national security risks'. But has the US shown any reliable evidence or rationale to back up those accusations?"
But in Congress, Republican and Democratic lawmakers have been mostly united in their stance that China is a rising threat. Instead, it was culture war issues that divided lawmakers on the bill, which took months to negotiate.
The Republican-controlled House had passed a version of the bill in June that would have banned the Defense Department's policy of reimbursing costs for service members who travel to another state for an abortion, ended gender affirming care for transgender troops and weeded out diversity initiatives in the military.
Most of those provisions did not make it into the final package, though Republicans are expecting President-elect Donald Trump to make sweeping changes to Pentagon policy when he enters office in January.
TRANSGENDER FIGHT
The bill also still prohibits funding for teaching critical race theory in the military and prohibits TRICARE health plans from covering gender dysphoria treatment for children under 18 if that treatment could result in "sterilization."
Mike Zamore, the director of policy and government affairs at the American Civil Liberties Union, urged Biden to veto the bill, saying it was "forcing thousands of active-duty service members to choose between their careers in the military and the future of their transgender children."
In a floor speech, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., said she has always voted for the National Defense Authorization Act, but would not do so this year. She said that the policy change for transgender children would affect between 6,000 and 7,000 families, according to estimates her office has received.
"The NDAA has embodied the idea that there is more that brings us together than separates us, that our service members and national defense are not to be politicized. That we put our country over a party when the chips are on the table," she said. "Unfortunately, this year that was ignored -- all to gut the rights of our service members to get the health care they need for their children."
Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he worried that Johnson's provision could set a dangerous precedent for the inclusion of other "social policy riders" in future National Defense Authorization Acts, which in turn could threaten the annual policy bill's decades-long record of consistent passage.
"But at the end of the day, I'm not going to sink the whole defense and intel bill," he said in an interview.
In 2017, there were 2,500 minors receiving such health care through the military's TRICARE health system, according to a report circulated by the American Civil Liberties Union. The Williams Institute, a UCLA-based think tank that researches gender identity and sexual orientation laws, says that nationwide there are about 300,000 youth, aged 13 to 18, who identify as transgender, and that 0.6% of the total U.S. population identifies as transgender.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., told reporters last week that Johnson's provision was unnecessary because Trump is likely to enact the same policy -- with or without Congress -- once he takes office next month.
Information for this article was contributed by Didi Tang and Josh Funk of The Associated Press; and by Abigail Hauslohner and Mariana Alfaro of The Washington Post.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., prays during a U.S. Capitol Hanukkah event with a ceremonial Menorah lighting to commemorate the upcoming eight-day festival of Hanukkah on Capitol Hill Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)