The Senate on Wednesday approved a bill that paves the way for a significant increase in pay for newly enlisted military personnel and raises overall military spending to $895 billion, while eliminating financial coverage for gender transition treatments for children of armed forces members.
The defense budget bill traditionally receives strong bipartisan support and has been approved in Congress for nearly six decades. However, in recent years, it has become a battleground over social issues.
“This bill is not perfect, but it includes several important issues that Democrats have fought for,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. “It includes measures on how we can counter the Chinese Communist Party from a national security standpoint.”
In the House of Representatives, most Democrats voted against the bill last month after Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson insisted that the legislation include a provision to eliminate medical coverage for gender transition treatments for children. The bill passed easily with 281 votes in favor and 140 votes against.
Republican leaders in the Senate argue that the 1% increase in defense spending is insufficient, especially in a time of global instability and when U.S. dominance is being challenged.
Senate Republicans had advocated for an increase in defense spending this year and plan to push for more funding after taking control of the White House and Congress next year.
The annual budget outlines key Pentagon policies, but it must also be supported by other legislative actions.
The bill includes a 14.5% pay increase for newly enlisted armed forces personnel and a 4.5% increase for others. Lawmakers said this increase is essential for improving the quality of life for military personnel, especially at a time when many military families rely on government assistance programs to make ends meet.
The legislation also shifts resources toward a more confrontational approach to China, including the creation of a fund that could be used to send military resources to Taiwan, in the same way the U.S. has supported Ukraine. It also calls for investments in new military technologies, including artificial intelligence, and an increase in munitions production in the United States.
In recent years, the U.S. has also made efforts to prevent the military from purchasing Chinese-made products, and the defense bill expands this by banning goods from garlic to drone technology.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to this development, calling the ban “ridiculous.”
“I don’t think garlic ever thought it would pose a ‘great threat’ to the United States,” said Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the ministry.
The U.S. claims that starting from “drones to cranes, from refrigerators to garlic, more and more products made in China pose a national security risk.”
But have the U.S. provided credible evidence to support these claims?
In Congress, Republican and Democratic lawmakers have generally been united in their stance that China poses an increasing threat. However, the divisive issues stemmed from the cultural war elements included in the bill, which took months to negotiate.
The Republican-controlled House had passed a version of the bill in June that, if enacted into law, would have prohibited the Department of Defense from reimbursing costs for service members traveling to another state for an abortion, provided health services for transgender children of military families, and eliminated diversity initiatives in the military.
Most of these proposals were not included in the final defense bill, though Republicans expect that elected President Donald Trump will make major changes to Pentagon policy once he assumes office in January.
The bill also prohibits funding for the military to teach critical race theory, which focuses on the relationships between social concepts of race and ethnic identity, and bans healthcare coverage for gender transition treatments for children under 18 if the procedure could result in “sterilization.”
For some Democrats, the ban on transgender children’s healthcare – care they said could save lives – was a red line.
In a speech, Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin said that while she had always voted for the National Defense Authorization Act (a series of federal laws outlining the annual budget and spending for the U.S. Department of Defense), she would not do so this year. She stated that the policy change regarding transgender children would affect 6,000 to 7,000 families, according to her office’s estimates.
“The bill has always embodied the idea that there are more things that unite us than divide us, that our service members and national defense should not be politicized.”
“Unfortunately, this year that was ignored, and everything became about harming the rights of our service members and denying healthcare to their children,” she added. /VOA
