Senate OKs defense bill, but Obama is planning to veto it
Congress on Wednesday sent President Barack Obama a sweeping $612 billion defense policy bill that he has threatened to veto over an ongoing battle between Democrats and Republicans about government spending.
The Senate voted to approve the measure 70 to 27.
If Obama vetoes the bill, it would be only the fifth time that has happened in the past half-century. The bipartisan measure has become law every year for more than 50 years.
The House passed the bill last week, 269 to 151 — a margin not large enough to overcome a veto unless some Democrats change their votes.
Obama has said he’ll veto it because while it contains all the money he has requested, he doesn’t like Congress’ plan to pay for it by padding a separate war-fighting account with an extra $38 billion. Obama wants the removal of so-called sequester caps that have frozen domestic as well as defense spending.
If his veto is sustained, Congress will be forced to revise the bill or try to settle the larger budget dispute.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said a veto would be “outrageous” in the light of national security threats.
“I wish I could say it surprised me that President Obama might — for the sake of unrelated partisan games — actually contemplate vetoing a bipartisan defense bill that contains the level of funding authorization he asked for,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “I’m calling on him not to, especially in times like these.”
Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee praised the bill’s provisions aimed at helping streamline defense acquisitions, helping the Defense Department keep pace with changing technology, combating cyberattacks and funding the war in Afghanistan, Ukraine forces fighting Russian-backed rebels and the fight against Islamic State militants.
But he said he could not support it because it increases its end-run around the spending caps.
Adding funds to the account for Overseas Contingency Operations complicates defense spending, he said. It does not provide funds for many of the domestic agencies, such as the FBI, Coast Guard and Justice Department, because they remain subject to the spending caps.
“Defense budgeting needs to be based on our long-term military strategy,” he said. “A one year plus-up” to the special account does not provide the Pentagon “with the certainty and stability it needs when building its five-year budget.”
After the vote, House Speaker John Boehner issued a statement pressuring Obama to sign the bill.
But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday that the bill makes use of a “funding gimmick that some Republicans have called a slush fund, to try to provide for the basic national security of the United States in a way that the president and commander-in-chief finds grossly irresponsible.” Obama also is upset about provisions in the bill that would make it harder for him to transfer suspected terror detainees out of the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as part of his plan to close it before he leaves office.