The House of Representatives has voted on the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 (NDAA). The vote was 329-101.
Members of Congress in both chambers have spent nearly two months working on the legislation and introduced over 1,000 amendments to the package.
The House spent two days this week voting on over 600 individual amendments introduced in their chamber alone.
Illinois Republican Adam Kinzinger introduced an amendment that provides $100 million to “provide training to Ukrainian pilots and ground crews to become familiarized with American aircraft.” A voice vote approved the proposal.
The overall cost of the bill is $839 billion, which is $37 billion more than what the Biden administration had asked Congress to approve.
This bill is a massive omnibus that members realize will pass regardless of what is in it, so they also often work to include measures that are not related to defense spending. As noted by Politico, “other proposals with no connection to defense were wrapped into the bill. Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) won inclusion of his legislation to allow cannabis businesses to access the banking system. A bipartisan proposal from Reps. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and others were included to eliminate the federal sentencing disparity between drug offenses for powder and crack cocaine.”
In a statement issued earlier this week, the conservative Freedom Caucus urged Republicans to vote against the legislation. Despite their efforts, 149 Republicans joined 180 Democrats in voting for the final bill in the House.
Virginia Congressman Bob Good shared what he considered to be several of the most egregious parts of the bill in a series of tweets.
Texas Congressman Chip Roy was another vocal opponent of the legislative package.
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More pork & waste in damn bill