AP, Washington :
The House defied a veto threat from President Barack Obama on Friday and approved a $612 billion defense policy bill that Democrats complain busts budget limits on military spending and makes it harder for the president to close the U.S. prison for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
The vote was 269 to 151 for the legislation, a blueprint for next year’s spending on military and other national security programs.
While Republicans voted overwhelmingly for the bill, 41 Democrats disregarded Obama’s objections and joined the GOP lawmakers in passing it. Another 143 Democrats voted against it.
A 2011 bipartisan budget deal placed limits on defense and domestic spending. The House defense bill skirts those caps by putting $89 billion of the total into an emergency war-fighting fund, which is exempt from the restrictions.
Democrats warned that Republicans won’t do the same end-run around spending caps when it comes to financing non-defense agencies later this year, opening the door to sharp cuts in domestic spending.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the defense bill would be a prelude to future reductions that would “devastate other vital pillars of our national strength,” including homeland security, veterans, road building and other programs.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, accused Democrats of “letting politics come before national security.”
“With all the threats our troops face and the sacrifices they make,” he said, “Democrats’ opposition to this defense bill is in fact indefensible.”
Overall, the House bill authorizes $515 billion for national defense and another $89.2 billion for the emergency war-fighting fund for a total of $604.2 billion. Another $7.7 billion is mandatory defense spending that doesn’t get authorized by Congress.
That means the bill would provide the entire $611.9 billion desired by the president, but Obama and Democratic lawmakers still opposed it.
Democrats said putting money in the war account and not the base budget prevents the Pentagon from doing long-term planning for costly programs and weapons systems.
“Clearly, this desperate attempt to get around the budget caps put in place by Congress will have a significant negative effect on our military,” said Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.
The House defied a veto threat from President Barack Obama on Friday and approved a $612 billion defense policy bill that Democrats complain busts budget limits on military spending and makes it harder for the president to close the U.S. prison for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
The vote was 269 to 151 for the legislation, a blueprint for next year’s spending on military and other national security programs.
While Republicans voted overwhelmingly for the bill, 41 Democrats disregarded Obama’s objections and joined the GOP lawmakers in passing it. Another 143 Democrats voted against it.
A 2011 bipartisan budget deal placed limits on defense and domestic spending. The House defense bill skirts those caps by putting $89 billion of the total into an emergency war-fighting fund, which is exempt from the restrictions.
Democrats warned that Republicans won’t do the same end-run around spending caps when it comes to financing non-defense agencies later this year, opening the door to sharp cuts in domestic spending.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the defense bill would be a prelude to future reductions that would “devastate other vital pillars of our national strength,” including homeland security, veterans, road building and other programs.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, accused Democrats of “letting politics come before national security.”
“With all the threats our troops face and the sacrifices they make,” he said, “Democrats’ opposition to this defense bill is in fact indefensible.”
Overall, the House bill authorizes $515 billion for national defense and another $89.2 billion for the emergency war-fighting fund for a total of $604.2 billion. Another $7.7 billion is mandatory defense spending that doesn’t get authorized by Congress.
That means the bill would provide the entire $611.9 billion desired by the president, but Obama and Democratic lawmakers still opposed it.
Democrats said putting money in the war account and not the base budget prevents the Pentagon from doing long-term planning for costly programs and weapons systems.
“Clearly, this desperate attempt to get around the budget caps put in place by Congress will have a significant negative effect on our military,” said Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.
