Soldiers of the 326th Financial Management Support Center, Captain Xinjun Salinas, Lieutenant Colonel Luke Ann, and Captain Salalyn Moon moved their operations in less than two hours during a Diamond Saber Xi exercise at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, Aug. 14, 2021, and from left to right, stacking simulated currency. (Command of Mark R.W. Wormpura of the U.S. Army).
The comprehensive National Defense Policy Act will give service members a pay rise of 52%, the bill is being submitted to Joe Biden for signature.
On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed the National Defense Authorization Act by a vote of 310-118. The night before, the Senate passed the bill by a vote of 87 to 13.
Biden is expected to sign the bill by the end of the year, and the White House said in a statement earlier this week that the bill "provides the critical authority we need to build the military needed to contain future conflicts, while supporting service members and their spouses and families who carry out the task every day." ”
In addition to backing the largest troop pay raise in 20 years, this year's NDAA mobilized several culture war mines while avoiding some of the biggest mines.
After months-long negotiations between Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate, Congress passed the bill that ditches provisions drafted by House Republicans that would block the Pentagon's existing policies of providing travel services for troops seeking abortions and gender-affirming care for transgender service members.
Republicans have had some victories in the final bill to curb the Pentagon's diversity program. That said, the bill freezes hiring for positions in the Pentagon focused on diversity initiatives, limits pay for civilian diversity employees, and prohibits the promotion of "critical race theory," which the bill defines as the theory that people of certain races "bear collective offenses and are inherently responsible for the actions of people of the same race committed in the past."
Although ultra-conservative House Republicans complained about the removal of anti-abortion and anti-transgender provisions from the final bill, they could not stop the bill from passing. The House Republican leadership brought the NDP bill to Congress under a procedural mechanism, which meant that the bill needed at least two-thirds of the support to pass, but that prevented far-right lawmakers from blocking the bill.
In the end, there were more House Democrats than Republicans supporting the final bill, a departure from the version of the bill passed by the House in July, which Democrats collectively rejected because of the anti-abortion and anti-transgender provisions. On Thursday, 163 Democrats voted in favor of the bill, compared with 147 Republicans.
The bill also faced some procedural issues in the Senate, although it passed with a broad bipartisan majority. Most prominently is Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri. , forcing several procedural votes to express his anger at the exclusion of radiation exposure compensation from the compromise bill. The wording originally passed by the Senate would, for the first time, provide benefits to those affected by the St. Louis nuclear waste dump and the Trinity nuclear test in New Mexico.