These 23 House Dems Joined Republicans in Voting to Cut Social Spending to Fuel the War Budget Jonathan Cohn Follow Feb 3, 2018 · 2 min read

On Tuesday, several hours before Trump’s bellicose State of the Union address, House Republicans passed a bloated military appropriations bill for FY 2018.

There remains no long-term spending deal, and the vote did nothing to change that fact. However, it did give Republicans the opportunity to show their willingness to blow past Pentagon budget caps at the expense of social spending. The Armed Services Committee Republicans and House Freedom Caucus had asked for the vote.

This bill authorizes $584 billion in base discretionary appropriations for the Department of Defense, plus $75 billion in additional discretionary appropriations designated for the Pentagon’s Overseas Contingency Operations slush fund, and then another $5 billion designated as emergency spending.

The OCO account has allowed Congress to evade the budget caps for military spending that they agreed to in the Budget Control Act of 2010.

The US spends more on its military than the next seven countries — China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the UK, India, France, and Japan — combined, and has military bases in 80 countries.

The tens of billions in extra military spending would require cuts in non-discretionary social spending, for which the caps would remain. Funny how deficits and “spending” are only a problem when it comes to social services and not the military.

House Republicans, despite past promises of returning to “regular order,” refused to allow for any amendments to the bill.

The bill passed 250 to 166. Four Republicans defected to join most Democrats in voting NO: Justin Amash (MI-03), Jimmy Duncan (TN-02), Tom Massie (KY-04), and Mark Sanford (SC-01). Walter Jones (NC-03) probably would have voted NO had he been there.

And then 23 Democrats, including several who are seeking higher office, joined Republicans: