House Approves $696 Billion Military Spending Bill

Includes $75 Billion for Overseas Contingency Operations

In a 344-81 vote today, the House of Representatives passed their version of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a $696 billion spending bill which far exceeds the amount of money sought by the Pentagon and the Trump Administration

The bill has a base $621.5 billion funding, nad $75 billion in the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) fund, which includes at least $10 billion that are earmarked as part of the OCO but intended to be spent on domestic military spending.

The bill was supported by a majority of Democrats, and the overwhelming majority of Republicans. Indeed, only eight Republicans voted against the bill, with three other abstentions. The bill still has to be reconciled with its Senate alternative before becoming law.

President Trump had proposed a very large increase in military spending, compared to those sought in recent years, with an eye on a bigger Navy. Congressional hawks were deeply critical of even this large proposed increase as insufficient, and sought to outdo it with a bigger, pricier version.

There still hasn’t been a proper resolution to the 2011 sequestration rules, which Congress has ignored every year since at any rate, but on paper, the legal cap on the pre-OCO budget is supposed to be $549 billion, which will obviously be far exceeded.

Obviously this is by far the biggest military spending bill on the planet, many times what the second largest military, China, spends in a year.

Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz

ISIS Pushes Syrian Forces Out of Town Near Raqqa, Kills 34 Troops - August 25th, 2017
US Pilots Expect Even Heavier Airstrikes With Afghan Escalation - August 25th, 2017
Apple Purges All Iranian Apps From iPhones, Citing US Sanctions - August 25th, 2017
Iraqi Forces Reach Center of Tal Afar, Seize Neighborhoods - August 25th, 2017
Trump's New Sanctions Give Maduro Opportunity to Purge Opposition - August 25th, 2017

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is news editor of Antiwar.com. View all posts by Jason Ditz

Click here to hide comments

liveload

When they didn’t do an effing thing to earn a single red cent of that money and have zero actual accountability for any of it, of course they’ll vote to spend as much as they can on whatever useless garbage catches their eye.
deganawida

Over a trillion ‘spent’ on militarism,domestic and international from the greatest purveyor of violence and the largest exporter of terrorism in the world today…It grows…This feeding war machine all with profit in mind, will collapse upon itself.
wars r u.s.

Whew! They kept it under 700 billion.
- Brockland A.T.
  
  $US 1.00 (2017) = $US 6.07 (1971)
  
  The significance of 1971 was the Nixon Shock, a final de-linking of the $US from any official gold standard, ultimately ending Bretton Woods (1973) and the dawn of the Petrodollar (1974).
  
  That would make today’s military budget $US 4222.03 billion in 1971 dollars, in other words around $US 4.2 trillion.
  
  (dollartimes .com calculator)
Halit

And this is nation complain about North Korean missiles.
Nuclear proliferation is the answer to keep this bastards honest.
TellTheTruth-2

Econ 101 – Guns or Butter … screw the military .. let’s have single payer health care.
- Brockland A.T.
  
  Actually, the private health insurance industry monopoly is the obstacle, not the military.
  
  The military health system (TRICARE) is more or less a single-payer health care model and accounted for US$52 billion in personnel spending in 2012. Many people join the military specifically for ‘free’ health benefits (they do pay a premium).
  
  As of 2012 1.4 million people served in the military but 10 million were eligible including ex-mil and family members. (“How Health-Care Spending Strains the US Military”, Forbes March 12, 2012, “Approaches to Reducing Federal Spending on Military Health Care” Congressional Budget Office January 2014).
  
  However like single-payer systems throughout the world, costs are greatly inflated by crony capitalist influences, most obviously Big Pharma and its hyper-expensive drug monopoly games. Unfortunately the solution advocated by crony capitalists is simply to toss soldiers into private health insurance. A bad idea obviously.
  
  (18 Ridiculous Statistics About US Health Care That Will Make You Rip Your Hair Out, Michael Snyder, The Economic Collapse, Fe. 5 2011).
  
  Poor accountability results in rationing and shortages in the U.S. military, just like other single payer health systems in countries like Canada. Being able to fire union protected employees as Trump has done with the VA Accountability Act is not likely to solve nearly as much as it needs to and could just make things worse for whistleblowers.
  
  Going single payer in the U.S. is a very uphill battle, even if vitally necessary just to reduce the issues to accountability for resources. The references used are a little dated but nothing has changed except the costs are probably much higher now.
  
  Criticizing military spending is legit but should allow for that some of that spending is for military health benefits.
vietvet1968

DOD budget is the biggest scam ever…corporate welfare….votes back home…more failed wars…rip-off.
vietvet1968

DOD budget is the biggest scam ever…corporate welfare…votes for corrupt politicians…feeding the beast…rip-off.
Bastiat

Let’s hear it from those “small government” Republicans! To them spending more on the military while the country is drowning in debt is fiscally responsible.
- antarcticus
  
  This $700B alone is over $5k for every family in America. And they wonder why we hate them.
November5th

…..And add another 300 billion to that price tag for all the other WAR on TERROR crap. CIA, Dept of Energy(NUKES), NSA etc…..and this price tag of ONE TRILLION is only for 365 days then every penny is gone and they need another 1 TRILLION. WAR is a RACKET like General Butler wrote.
- chris chuba
  
  In that extra $300B is almost $200B for VA Benefits, the $1T price tag is very real. That puts our Defense spending at 5.2% of GDP, the 3.5% number is a myth.
so

Empire burning itself out on death and destruction. Same as it ever was.