Breakdown of votes
The Democrats were mostly in favor of the bill with 219 voting for it along with 65 Republicans. Only 16 Democrats voted against the bill. 132 Republicans and an independent voted against the bill.
President Trump was quick to applaud passage of the bill, calling it a victory for the military.
The Progressive Caucus threatened in April to tank the bill, claiming that the Pentagon outlays were out of control. However, most of the caucus ended up voting for the bill pointing to the increase in domestic spending the bill will provide.
Other responses to the bill’s passage
Representatives Pramila Jayapal and Mark Pocan, co-chairs of the Progressive Caucus, said in a statement before the vote, “It’s not a perfect deal by any means.This deal does not address the bloated Pentagon budget, but it does begin to close the gap in funding for families, by allocating more new non-defense spending than defense spending for the first time in many years.”
Executive director of Win Without War,Stephen Miles disputed the Progressive Caucus claim that the bill has more non-defense than defense spending: “Under this deal, the Pentagon and its affiliated programs will get $1.48 trillion over the next two years. The entire rest of gov’t, including the VA btw, will get $1.30 trillion. That’s $178.6 billion more for the Pentagon than the whole rest of gov’t. So, for the love of god, can we all stop pretending like this is somehow anything other than a continued orgy of unprecedented, wasteful, and obscene spending at the Pentagon.”
William Hartung, of the Centre for International Policy’s Arms and Security Project also noted that the budget deal vastly overpays the Pentagon saying: “At $738 billion for Fiscal Year 2020 and $740 billion for Fiscal Year 2021, the agreement sets the table for two of the highest budgets for the Pentagon and related work on nuclear warheads at the Department of Energy since World War II. The proposed figures are higher than spending at the height of the Vietnam and Korean Wars, and substantially more than the high point of the Reagan buildup of the 1980s. And the Fiscal Year 2020 and Fiscal Year 2021 numbers are only slightly less than spending in 2010, when the United States had 180,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, roughly nine times the number currently deployed.”
The bill is expected to pass in the Senate
The 2020 budget bill is expected to pass in the Senate next week. Trump has said that he would sign it. The Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has along with the president celebrated the increase in military spending in the bill. The bill has significantly more funds for the military than the Pentagon requested. McConnell said the bill met the Republicans’ number one priority of providing for defense.
Bill raises debt limit
As a recent article notes: “The House on Thursday passed a bill to raise the U.S. debt ceiling and set budget levels for two years, taking a step toward avoiding calamity that threatens to disrupt the economy…It sets discretionary spending at about $1.37 trillion in fiscal 2020 and slightly higher in fiscal 2021. The agreement suspends the U.S. borrowing limit for two years.”
