On December 8, the Senate voted 92 to 7 to send the wide-ranging National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to President Obama's desk. The House approved the bill by a margin of 375 to 34 the week before. If signed by the President, the NDAA would authorize a total of $618.7 billion in spending ($9 billion more than President Obama requested), including more than $67 billion for the overseas contingency operations (OCO) account. The bill also includes a $3.2 billion increase in military spending without a similar increase in non-defense spending, something congressional Democrats have long been pushing against and a troop pay raise of 2.1 percent, above the president's request for a 1.6 percent pay raise.
The White House has not yet said whether the President will sign the bill and has expressed its disappointment with the NDAA's restrictions on transferring detainees out of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, which the President has been trying to close. President Obama vetoed the 2016 NDAA over objections related to OCO spending and Guantanamo restrictions. He later approved a modified version that addressed his budget concerns but left the Guantanamo measure in place. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter has recommended the President sign the 2017 NDAA into law.
One key change would decentralize an important position at the Pentagon. Currently, the Defense Department's head of technology development also is in charge of acquisition. Under the new law, those positions will be split apart. The bill also elevates the Pentagon's cyberwarfare arm to make it what is known in the military as a "combatant command," the 10th such command in the Pentagon structure. That status will provide it with greater authority to develop and wage high-tech warfare.
Takeaway: The final defense policy bill of the Obama Administration, the 2017 NDAA sets the stage for debate next year over Republican proposals to increase the levels of defense spending allowed by the budget spending caps. Vice President-elect Mike Pence has already said the Trump Administration will send Congress a defense supplemental appropriations request within its first 100 days in office.
