Led by Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain (left) and House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry, lawmakers hammered out the differences in the House and Senate versions of the bill in only a few weeks. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images Senate sends budget-busting defense bill to Trump

The Senate gave final approval to the $700 billion compromise defense policy bill Thursday that would advocate a major military buildup called for by congressional defense hawks, but would bust through strict caps on defense spending to do it.

The National Defense Authorization Act was quickly passed by voice vote, without any final debate or dissent, and now heads to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it.


The final compromise is the product of a joint conference talks between House and Senate Armed Services leaders.

Led by Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) and House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), lawmakers hammered out the differences in the House and Senate versions of the bill in only a few weeks. The House passed the final NDAA on Tuesday, 356-70.

The measure would authorize just under $700 billion in national defense spending for this 2018 fiscal year. The bill would endorse $626.4 billion in base spending, including $20.6 billion for nuclear national security programs under the Energy Department, and authorize $65.7 billion for the Pentagon’s separate war account for Overseas Contingency Operations.

The bill’s topline comes in well above the Trump administration's $603 billion defense budget request. Lawmakers, however, authorized billions of dollars more to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps, build more ships and boost research and development and the procurement of missile defense technology.

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It also would account for the administration’s request for an additional $6 billion for missile defense to counter North Korean threats, additional troops in Afghanistan and repairs to the Navy destroyers USS Fitzgerald and John McCain, which were badly damaged in separate collisions in the Pacific.

Following Thursday's vote, McCain said the broad bipartisan support for the massive defense bill demonstrated that the budget caps were "insufficient and unacceptable" to fund the military.

"Nearly two months into Fiscal Year 2018, we cannot delay any longer in appropriating these vital, additional resources for our military," McCain said in a statement. "Any further delay in doing so would be an abdication of congressional responsibilities."

"I call upon the president to sign this important legislation into law — and in doing so acknowledge that this is the level of defense spending necessary to meet current threats, prepare for the challenges of an increasingly dangerous world and keep faith with our men and women in uniform," he added.

While the legislation would authorize more military spending that would exceed even the hawkish Trump administration’s plans, the bill would smash through spending caps set by the 2011 Budget Control Act. That law, enacted in an effort to reduce the deficit, limits defense spending to $549 billion during this fiscal year.

In order to boost defense spending anywhere near the level proposed by Armed Services leaders, lawmakers will need to strike a budget deal to raise the caps.

The final compromise bill includes billions of dollars more for helicopters, fighters, ships and personnel that weren’t requested by the Pentagon in its annual budget.

It would boost Navy shipbuilding by authorizing 13 new ships, five more than requested, including an extra Littoral Combat Ship, destroyer and amphibious ship. And it would authorize 24 Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet fighters, 10 more than requested, as well as 90 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, 20 above the budget request.

Under the bill, the Army would grow by 7,500 active-duty troops over last year, and the Marine Corps by 1,000 active-duty personnel. The Air Force would increase by 4,100 active-duty personnel, and the Navy by 4,000 active-duty personnel.

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The bill would provide military service members with a 2.4 percent pay raise, higher than the 2.1 percent proposed by the Defense Department.

It also would permanently extend the Special Survivor Indemnity Allowance to fix the so-called widow’s tax, which requires surviving spouses of service members killed in action to forfeit the survivor benefit pension annuity. The 10-year, $2.8 billion cost of extending the benefit would be covered by increases to Tricare pharmacy copays.

Additionally, the legislation would continue efforts spearheaded by McCain to shake up the Pentagon’s senior leadership ranks by establishing the Pentagon's newly created chief management officer as the third most senior post and give it more information technology functions performed by the chief information officer.

Bowing to Senate resistance, however, conference negotiators rejected a House-backed proposal to create a new Space Corps under the Air Force.

Instead, the final bill would require an independent plan to establish a separate service responsible for space as well as a slew of changes to streamline national security space acquisitions and operations.