Senate approves $626B Defense bill

Coming in at dawn Saturday in the middle of a snowstorm, the Senate finally caught up with its budget calendar, approving a $626 billion bill to fund the Defense Department for the fiscal year that began nearly three months ago.

The lopsided 88—10 vote followed a 63-35 roll call in which most Republicans stood back and again forced Democrats to come up with the super-majority needed to waive budget rules before passage. The measure now goes to the White House where President Barack Obama is expected to quickly sign the bill into law to end the impasse.


As an extra—albeit belated—precaution, interim funding for the military through Dec.23rd was also hastily approved by unanimous consent.

Overdue appropriations bills are a modern way of life for Washington, but this one was exceptional given the level of partisan rancor amid two wars and the fact that senators went so far to allow even stop-gap spending authority for the Pentagon to expire at midnight Friday.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, joined by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, made a final appeal Friday, saying prompt action was needed not just for the department but “our foreign policy and national security priorities,” But the Senate had tied itself in so many procedural knots that there was no getting out until Saturday morning.

The real culprit was never the substance of the bill but a bitter pre-Christmas Senate brawl over healthcare reform. Having the two issues side-by-side created its own dynamic: defense slowed down while the military images in the healthcare debate sped up.

By Saturday morning, Republicans leaders were accusing Democrats of being on a “Kamikaze” mission to pass their healthcare bill before Christmas. Democrats countered with images suggesting that troop-funding has become cannon fodder for Republicans allied with insurance companies against health care reform.

“Has the Republican Party turned on America’s military? I don’t think so,” said Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D—Ill.). “I think they support America’s military but they are willing to use them—and use their spending bill—as part of (the Republican) parliamentary procedure.”

Included in the measure is $128 billion for wars overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan. Beyond defense, the bill has also been a locomotive for about $13.3 billion in additional spending chiefly to extend jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed whose benefits would otherwise expire.

Highway and transit programs as well as major anti-terrorism provisions of the Patriot Act would be extended through Feb 28th as part of the same package, but Democrats must still contend with a year-end bill to expand Treasury’s borrowing authority and avoid the threat of default next month.

The House has already approved an interim measure raising the federal debt ceiling by $290 billion to carry the government into February, and the Senate will have to return after Christmas to deal with the issue prior to New Year’s.