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Wednesday, November 15, 2017, 14:54
US House passes US$700b defense bill
By Reuters
Wednesday, November 15, 2017, 14:54 By Reuters


US soldiers stand guard during a joint medical evacuatioin exercise as part of the annual massive military exercises, known as Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, at a South Korean Army hospital in Goyang, northwest of Seoul, on March 15, 2017. The US House of Representatives easily passed a defense policy bill worth nearly US$700 billion on Nov 14, 2017 for the 2018 fiscal year. (JUNG YEON-JE / AFP)

WASHINGTON -- The US House of Representatives easily passed a defense policy bill worth nearly US$700 billion on Tuesday for the 2018 fiscal year. 

Securing those appropriations must be Congress' top priority before the year ends

Mac Thornberry, chairman, House Armed Service Committee

The Republican-controlled House voted 356-70 to approve the US$692-billion-dollar compromise National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) reached after negotiations between the House and Senate. 

The annual NDAA, a substantial increase over the 2017 funding of US$619 billion, which authorizes the level of defense spending and sets policies over how the money is spent, would earmark US$626.4 billion for the base defense budget and US$65.7 billion for war operations. 

The NDAA also puts forward a spate of measures, including a 2.4-percent pay raise for service members, an increase of active duty and reserve troops across the services, beefed-up missile defense, enhanced operations in Afghanistan, and more purchases of weapons and military equipment. 

The bill, which tallies nearly five percent more than US President Donald Trump's US$603 billion budget request, will take effect after it passes the Senate, also controlled by the Republicans, and is signed into law by the president. 

But the spending will be automatically cut if there is no deal in Congress to raise budget caps, which the proposed funding bursts through, under the rules of sequestration. 

Mac Thornberry, chairman of the House Armed Service Committee, on Tuesday urged Congress to work out an appropriations bill to pave the way for the NDAA. 

"Securing those appropriations must be Congress' top priority before the year ends," the Republican representative said in a statement. 

But Republicans are expected to face an uphill battle in the Senate as Democrats may not agree to an increase in military funding at the cost of curbing spending on non-defense programs. 

The United States outpaces all other countries in military spending. With a US$700-billion-dollar budget, the US military spending would exceed the total spending of its next ten rivals put together, going off of 2016 military spending estimates from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. 

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