US Senate passes defense bill that raises troop pay and strips trans care for kids of military | US politics

The Senate passed a defense bill on Wednesday that authorizes significant pay raises for junior enlisted service members, aims to counter China’s growing power and boosts overall military spending to $895bn while also stripping coverage of transgender medical treatments for children of military members.

The annual defense authorization bill usually gains strong bipartisan support and has not failed to pass Congress in nearly six decades, but the Pentagon policy measure in recent years has become a battleground for cultural issues. Republicans this year sought to tack on to the legislation priorities for social conservatives, contributing to a months-long negotiation over the bill and a falloff in support from Democrats.

Still, the bill passed comfortably 85-14, sending it to Joe Biden. Eleven senators who caucus with Democrats, as well as three Republicans, voted against the legislation.

The bill “isn’t perfect, but it still includes some very good things that Democrats fought for”, said Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, in a floor speech. “It has strong provisions to stand up against the Chinese Communist Party here on a national security basis.”

In the House, a majority of Democrats voted against the bill last week after House speaker Mike Johnson insisted on adding the provision to ban the military health system from providing transgender medical care for children. The legislation easily passed by a vote of 281-140.

Senate Republican leaders argued that its 1% increase for defense spending was not enough, especially at a time of global unrest and challenges to American dominance. Senate Republicans had argued for a generational boost to defense spending this year, but are planning another push for more defense funding once they control the White House and Congress next year.

“We are currently experiencing the most dangerous national security moments since World War II,” said Republican senator Roger Wicker, who will chair the Senate armed services committee next year. He has pushed for larger boosts to defense funding that would break spending caps that were agreed to in the bipartisan deal to suspend the country’s debt ceiling last year.

The annual defense authorization bill directs key Pentagon policy, but it would still need to be backed up with an appropriations package.

The legislation provides for a 14.5% pay raise for junior enlisted service members and a 4.5% increase for others. Lawmakers said those were key to improving the quality of life of service members at a time when many military families rely on food banks and other government assistance programs to make ends meet.

The Republican-controlled House had passed a version of the bill in June that would have banned the defense department’s policy of reimbursing costs for service members who travel to another state for an abortion, ended gender-affirming care for transgender troops and weeded out diversity initiatives in the military.

Most of those provisions did not make it into the final package, though Republicans are expecting Donald Trump to make sweeping changes to Pentagon policy when he enters office in January.

The bill also still prohibits funding for teaching critical race theory in the military and prohibits Tricare health plans from covering gender dysphoria treatment for children under 18 if that treatment could result in “sterilization”.

For some Democrats, the ban on treatments for transgender children – care they said could be life-saving – was a red line.

In a floor speech, Democratic senator Tammy Baldwi said she has always voted for the NDAA, but would not do so this year. She said that the policy change for transgender children would affect between 6,000 and 7,000 families, according to estimates her office has received.

“The NDAA has embodied the idea that there is more that brings us together than separates us, that our service members and national defense are not to be politicized. That we put our country over a party when the chips are on the table,” she said. “Unfortunately, this year that was ignored – all to gut the rights of our service members to get the healthcare they need for their children.”