Today, the House voted to pass the conference report for the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), or defense bill.
The conference bill authorizes $619 billion, $3.2 billion more than President Obama’s budget request with no equivalent increase in domestic spending (a demand Democrats always make and then vote for the war spending boosts anyway). Congress continued its habit of using the Overseas Contingency Operations fund (a Pentagon slush fund) as a way to evade sequestration for the military.
The bill contains, among other things, $1.2 billion for the ongoing war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria and for the training and assisting of the Syrian opposition forces,; $3.4 billion for the European Reassurance Initiative (a program strengthening NATO) along with $350 million to train and equip Ukrainian security forces; $600 million for the Israeli missile defense system; $3.2 billion for Readiness Stabilization Funding to stop the drawdown of troop levels; and the preservation of existing bans on the closure of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility or the transfer of inmates.
As Congress increases the Pentagon’s budget, it’s important to remember that the Pentagon still can’t pass an audit. The Pentagon has never completed an audit of how they spend their trillions of dollars, and although Congress demanded that the Army achieve “audit-readiness” by next September, that won’t likely happen. According to a report from the DOD inspector general this past summer, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service could not provide written documentation for $6.5 trillion worth of year-end financial adjustments.
“Waste, fraud, and abuse" may often be an empty talking point in Washington, but it is standard operating procedure at the Pentagon.
Nonetheless, the FY 2017 NDAA passed easily: 375 to 34.
30 Democrats and 4 Republicans voted against it. Both numbers are smaller than they were last year—when 49 Democrats and 9 Republicans opposed the NDAA.
Here are the 30 Democrats who (rightly) voted against it this year:
Karen Bass (CA-37)
Xavier Becerra (CA-34)
Earl Blumenauer (OR-03)
Mike Capuano (MA-07)
Judy Chu (CA-32)
Katherine Clark (MA-05)
Yvette Clarke (NY-09)
Steve Cohen (TN-09)
John Conyers (MI-13)
Mark DeSaulnier (CA-11)
Tulsi Gabbard (HI-02)
Alan Grayson (FL-09)
Raul Grijalva (AZ-03)
Luis Gutierrez (IL-04)
Mike Honda (CA-17)
Jared Huffman (CA-02)
Joe Kennedy (MA-04)
Barbara Lee (CA-13)
John Lewis (GA-05)
Jerry Nadler (NY-10)
Frank Pallone (NJ-06)
Mark Pocan (WI-02)
Jared Polis (CO-02)
Jan Schakowsky (IL-09)
Kurt Schrader (OR-05)
Mark Takano (CA-41)
Nydia Velázquez (NY-07)
Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-09)
Pete Welch (VT-AL)
John Yarmuth (KY-03)
So how did we get from 49 to 30?
-4: Four Democrats who reliably vote against the NDAA were not in attendance:
Keith Ellison (MN-05)
Janice Hahn (CA-44)
Zoe Lofgren (CA-19)
Jim McDermott (WA-07)
Both Hahn and McDermott are retiring (maybe they’ve taken on a lighter schedule?), and Ellison is in Denver for a conference of state party chairs.
-9: Nine Democrats that voted against the NDAA in 2013, 2014, and 2015 decided to vote for it this year—in a strange break from tradition:
Marcia Fudge (OH-11)
Jim McGovern (MA-02)
Gwen Moore (WI-04)
Grace Napolitano (CA-32)
Donald Payne (NJ-10)
Charlie Rangel (NY-13)
Jose Serrano (NY-15)
Eric Swalwell (CA-15)
Frederica Wilson (FL-24)
-11: Eleven additional Democrats who voted against the NDAA last year voted for it this year:
Suzanne Bonamici (OR-01)
Andre Carson (IN-07)
David Cicilline (RI-01)
Emanuel Cleaver (MO-05)
Sam Farr (CA-20)
Dan Kildee (MI-05)
Alan Lowenthal (CA-47)
Carolyn Maloney (NY-12)
Betty McCollumn (MN-04)
Rick Nolan (MN-08)
Chris Van Hollen (MD-08)
+5: Five Democrats who voted for the NDAA last year voted against it this year:
Steve Cohen (TN-09)
John Conyers (MI-13)
Tulsi Gabbard (HI-02)
Frank Pallone (NJ-06)
John Yarmuth (KY-03)
On to the Republicans….
The four Republicans who voted against the NDAA were Justin Amash (MI-03), Jimmy Duncan (TN-02), Morgan Griffith (VA-09), and Tom Massie (KY-04).
How did that drop from 9? Walter Jones (NC-03) and Raul Labrador (ID-01), who voted against it last year, were absent. And then Mick Mulvaney (SC-05), Dana Rohrabacher (CA-48), and Mark Sanford (SC-01), who voted against the NDAA last year, voted for it today.