| 3.23.22

The National Defense Authorization Act: Funding the Armed Forces (and Much More) (H.R. 4435)

Do you support or oppose this bill?

What is H.R. 4435?

(Updated July 13, 2017)

This bill authorizes spending for one of the two yearly spending bills—there are twelve, in total—that comprise the defense budget. The other bill deals chiefly with military construction and veterans’ benefits. That bill can be found here. The annual appropriations bill that deals with U.S. intelligence agencies can be found here. This bill deals chiefly with the budget for the Department of Defense (DoD), along with defense-related nulcear programs overseen by the Department of Energy (DOE). The bill allots $496 billion to the DoD and $17.9 billion to the DOE. It includes buying things like tanks, weapons, ammo and planes, in addition to setting military pay and numbers of military personnel.

Among its many provisions, the current version of the bill provides a 1.8%military pay raise; rejects another round of military base closures; spares retiring the Air Force’s A-10 Warthog fighter jet (a move that the Air Force itself sought); and refuels the Navy aircraft carrier U.S.S. George Washington. In case you were curious how much it costs to refuel an aircraft carrier, the answer, according to this bill, is 782 million dollars.

The topic of immigration has also made its way into the legislation via the ENLIST Act, which would, according to Politico, “give green cards to young undocumented immigrants who serve in the military.”

The bill is 543 pages and has a whopping 165 amendments. A list of the amendments can be found here.

Argument in favor

Bipartisan support and deficit-aware. Gives Armed Forces personnel a pay raise. Keeps military bases open. Keeps commissary subsidies going. A number of new planes mean good things for American manufacturing .

Argument opposed

The Pentagon is bankrupting the country. In 2012, the combined defense budgets of China, Russia, the UK, Japan, France, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Italy, India and Germany were 652 billion--30 billion lower than America's.

Impact

When enacted, the bill will set funding levels for Department of Defense and nuclear weapons programs linked to the Department of Energy, in addition to setting funding and troop levels for the branches of the Armed Forces. These funding levels in turn affect myriad, defense-related issues and agencies, in addition to weighing on numerous private sector components.

Cost of H.R. 4435

According to the Congressional Budgeting Office, "as reported by the House Committee on Armed Services on May 13, 2014, H.R. 4435 would authorize appropriations totaling $594 billion for fiscal year 2015 for the military functions of the Department of Defense (DoD), for certain activities of the Department of Energy (DOE), and for other purposes. That total includes $79 billion for the cost of overseas contingency operations, primarily in Afghanistan. In addition, H.R. 4435 would prescribe personnel strengths for each active-duty and selected-reserve component of the U.S. armed forces. CBO estimates that appropriation of the authorized amounts would result in outlays of $581 billion over the 2015-2019 period."