Democrat and Republican lawmakers will hash out the next fiscal year’s military spending budget, also known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), during this week’s formal House-Senate conference.
. . . . The Senate’s bill avoids addressing the issues of abortion and transgender services. However, it does acknowledge the concerns expressed by Republicans about what they call an excessive influence of progressive policies within the Pentagon.
As such, Senate Republicans were able to get provisions in the policy that prevent mandating the inclusion of preferred pronouns in official correspondence as well as a proposed hiring freeze on “new diversity, equity, and inclusion positions.”
“Military readiness depends on the guarantee of equal opportunity, without the promise of an equal outcome, because warfare is a competitive endeavor and the nation’s enemies must know that the United States Armed Forces is led by the best, brightest, and bravest Americans,” the bill text reads.
“The tenets of critical race theory are antithetical to the merit-based, all-volunteer, military that has served the country with great distinction for the last 50 years.”
Just two weeks prior to the Senate’s passage, the House approved its version of the bill, which incorporated several Republican amendments aimed at dismantling the Pentagon’s abortion policy for service members seeking procedures out of state as well as restricting transgender-affirming treatments.
President Biden has previously indicated he would not sign a package filled with hardline GOP priorities like what’s included in the House’s version. . . . (read more on Fox News)
Johnson brings defense chops to upcoming spending fight (The Hill, 24 NOV 23)
New Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has spent the last couple years on the House Armed Services Committee, experience that will influence his handling of the upcoming fight with the Senate over the annual Defense spending bill.
While Johnson’s unique perspective may help in moving forward the immense, $886 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the must-pass legislation faces a series of hurdles and a wide chasm with the Senate. The current House bill contains a series of GOP-backed culture war provisions, which Johnson has supported, that are dead on arrival in the upper chamber.
Still, lawmakers this week expressed optimism over the bill’s chances, including two senior members of the House Armed Services Committee.
. . . . The House’s version of the NDAA, miles apart from the Senate’s, is packed with provisions restricting the Pentagon’s abortion travel policy, cutting medical care for transgender troops and ending various diversity programs.
Johnson, who in the past has sought wins on social issues that affect service members, must help craft a compromise bill that satisfies both the Republican-led House that pushed forward such culture war provisions and the Democrat-controlled Senate that has balked at their inclusion in the legislation.
Among the most controversial items is a rule that would block the Pentagon’s new policy that covers travel costs for military members who seek abortions out of state from where they are based, a proposal that the conservative Johnson co-sponsored.
Insertions that did make their way into the bill include one that bars funding for surgeries and hormone treatments for transgender troops and others that limit Pentagon programs aimed at diversity, equality and inclusion — efforts Johnson also supported.
Such provisions turned the normally bipartisan annual affair into a near-party-line vote when Republicans passed the House version of the bill earlier this year.
Provisions related to abortion and other culture issues are already expected to be watered down, tilting the bill in the Senate’s direction. . . . (read more on The Hill)
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