House passes annual $895 billion Pentagon policy bill
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The House of Representatives passed its sweeping annual Pentagon policy bill on Friday, which includes a variety of conservative culture war victories. The bill passed 217 to 199.
House Democrats called on their members to vote “no” on the legislation, saying too many “poison pill” amendments were included in the bill. Without Democratic support, the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives had a narrow margin for Republican defectors. They lost three Republicans and won six Democratic “yes” votes.
The bill outlines policies that would be funded if Congress were able to appropriate its $895.3 billion budget in a separate vote, an increase of $9 billion over the current year. Defense leaders in the House of Representatives made improving the quality of life for servicemembers a key focus in the 2025 bill amid unprecedented recruitment challenges. It would also provide a 19.5 percent raise to junior enlisted service members.
One amendment passed Thursday evening by Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Texas, would reverse a Biden policy that allows service members to be reimbursed for travel expenses if they need to leave the state where they are stationed to have an abortion. Another from Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, would ban funding for executive orders related to climate change.
Others would ban the creation of a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) office and the hiring of a Chief Diversity Officer in the Department of Defense, impose a hiring freeze on all DEI jobs, and prohibit military health care from paying for gender reassignment surgeries or hormone therapies. therapies. The Biden White House has vowed to veto the legislation, which will have to be reworked with a Senate version of the bill.
The White House Budget Office said the plan to offer low-level troops a nearly 20 percent pay increase would be too expensive and should be postponed. Republicans furiously argued that these soldiers often get by on food stamps, with a minimum salary of $24,000, excluding health care and housing allowances.
An amendment by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., to block any future aid to Ukraine failed outright by a vote of 74-343. The House also voted to block funding for Gaza reconstruction — the amendment from Reps. Brian Mast, R-Fla., Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., and Eli Crane, R-Ariz., passed on a voice vote without Democrats’ request for a recorded vote.
A bipartisan amendment to limit the transfer of cluster munitions by Reps. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and Sarah Jacobs, D-Calif., was easily defeated. Another amendment to return a Confederate monument to Arlington National Cemetery failed, although 192 Republicans voted for it.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries noted that the bill passed out of committee 57-1 without amendments. But with the series of right-wing amendments, Republicans ‘hijacked’ the bill to ‘ram the extreme MAGA agenda down the throats of Americans’.
