House passes annual $895B Pentagon policy bill including nearly 20% military pay increase, rollback of 'woke' Pentagon diversity measures
- House Democrats whipped their members to vote 'no' against the legislation
- READ MORE: Republican fury over Biden opposition to military pay raise
The House passed its sprawling yearly Pentagon policy bill on Friday that includes a variety of conservative culture war wins.
The bill passed 217 to 199.
House Democrats whipped their members to vote 'no' against the legislation, saying too many 'poison pill' amendments had made their way into the bill.
Without Democratic support, House GOP leadership had a narrow margin for Republican defections. They lost three Republicans and won six Democratic 'yes' votes.
The bill lays out the policies that would be funded if Congress can appropriate its $895.3 billion budget in a separate vote, an increase of $9 billion over the current year.
Defense leaders in the House made 'quality of life' improvements for service members a main focus in the 2025 bill, amid unprecedented recruitment issues. It would also offer a 19.5 percent increase to junior enlisted service members.
One amendment that passed Thursday night from Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Texas, would undo a Biden policy that allows service members to get reimbursed for travel costs if they have to leave the state where they are stationed to get an abortion.
The House passed its sprawling yearly Pentagon policy bill on Friday that includes a variety of conservative culture war wins
Another one from Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, would bar funding for executive orders related to climate change.
Other ones would ban the creation of a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) office and the hiring of a chief diversity officer in the DoD and institute a hiring freeze on all DEI jobs, and ban military healthcare from paying for gender reassignment surgeries or hormone therapies.
The Biden White House has promised to veto the legislation, which will need to be reworked with a Senate version of the bill. The White House Budget Office said the plan to offer the nearly 20 percent pay boost to low-ranking troops would be too expensive and needs to be delayed.
Republicans furiously argued these service members are often scraping by on food stamps, with a minimum salary of $24,000 before healthcare and housing allowances.
An amendment from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., to block any future assistance for Ukraine roundly failed in a 74-343 vote.
The House also voted to block funding for the rebuilding of Gaza - the amendment by Reps. Brian Mast, R-Fla., Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., and Eli Crane, R-Ariz., passed by voice vote with no demand from Democrats for a recorded vote.
A bipartisan amendment to restrict the transfer of cluster munitions by Reps. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and Sarah Jacobs, D-Calif., was easily defeated.
Another amendment to return a confederate monument to Arlington National Cemetery failed, though 192 Republicans voted for it.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries noted the bill without amendments had passed out of committee 57 to 1. But with the series of right wing amendments, Republicans 'hijacked' the bill to 'ram the extreme MAGA agenda down the throats of Americans.'
