House Republicans on Thursday cleared a major spending bill that takes direct aim at so-called woke Pentagon policies, including drag shows on military bases, gender transition surgery and the use of taxpayer money to facilitate abortions, setting the stage for a high-stakes culture clash with President Biden and his Democratic allies in Congress.
Having won the majority in November elections, House Republicans have seized on the annual defense authorization bill and a companion appropriations bill to showcase their unhappiness with the Biden administration and the Pentagon.
In a closed session, the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense passed its $826 billion spending plan for fiscal year 2024 that calls for a historic 5.2% pay raise for troops, pours billions of dollars into defense initiatives in the Pacific to counter China and ramps up the military’s role in combating the flow of opioids and fentanyl into the U.S.
Small insertions in the drafting process can have big consequences for defense bills. The House blueprint for the defense policy bill contains a provision that would effectively nullify the long-term understanding with Russia against permanently stationing U.S. troops along its border with Eastern Europe. A second provision would give Alabama a boost in a simmering turf war with Colorado over the site of the headquarters of the new Space Force.
The social and cultural riders attached to the policy and spending bills are by far the most controversial and all but guarantee a vicious fight with the White House and the Democratic-controlled Senate.
The Senate will begin marking up its version of both bills this summer.
For Republicans, the 2024 budget process offers the most direct path to dismantle a host of Pentagon policies that critics say detract from military readiness, push liberal initiatives such as mandated racial diversity and degrade morale in the ranks at a critical moment for national security.
Indeed, House Republican leaders cast the legislation as an effort to redirect the Defense Department back toward its underlying goals and away from left-leaning initiatives that have taken hold in recent years.
In a statement after the vote Thursday, subcommittee Chairman Rep. Ken Calvert, California Republican, said the bill directs the military to focus “on its mission — not culture wars.”
“This bill rejects many of the Biden administration’s misguided funding proposals, such as climate change initiatives, far-left social policies, and shrinking the Navy,” Mr. Calvert said.
Republicans say the U.S. is at an inflection point in its increasingly antagonistic military and economic showdown with communist China. They argue that liberal Pentagon policies distract from the mission of building the most effective and lethal military.
In the broader culture war involving the military is a plan to strip Army bases of their links to Confederate generals.
With Republicans emboldened by their election gains, their defense spending bill includes provisions to prohibit the use of taxpayer funds for gender transition surgery, prohibit the use of taxpayer money to promote “critical race theory,” outlaw Pentagon spending for events “that bring discredit on the military,” such as the use of drag queens as military recruiters, and eliminate the military’s deputy inspector general for diversity and inclusion. They hope to unwind what they say is the military’s dangerous move toward the political and social left.
The bill’s most ambitious goal is reversing a new Pentagon policy that provides paid time off and travel reimbursement for female service members who must go out of state if they cannot obtain a legal abortion where they are stationed. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin put that policy into place immediately after the Supreme Court’s reversal last year of its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that established a national right to abortion.
Uncertain future
Democrats said the legislation has no political future in a divided Congress and specifically blasted the focus on social and cultural issues.
The Republican draft “contains the most extreme social policy riders I have ever seen in a defense appropriations bill. These riders make it almost impossible to gain bipartisan support,” said Rep. Betty McCollum of Minnesota, the ranking Democrat on the defense appropriations subcommittee.
“Our service members make immense sacrifices, along with their families, on behalf of our nation, and they deserve better from Congress,” she said.
The appropriations bill will set 2024 spending levels for the Defense Department. On a separate track, the House Armed Services Committee will advance its National Defense Authorization Act, a massive policy package that authorizes programs, weapons and other specific funding streams. Both parties traditionally use the must-pass legislation each year to push through pet policy initiatives.
The Senate, where Democrats have a slim majority, will undertake its funding process this summer. The two chambers need to produce a compromise package that Mr. Biden is willing to sign.
On the surface, it seems Democrats are correct that many Republican wish list items will eventually be dropped. If recent history is any guide, some policy priorities that initially look like non-starters will end up in a compromise bill.
Last year, Republicans and Democrats in Congress joined together to pass a defense spending plan that rolled back the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The White House objected to eliminating the mandate, which resulted in the discharge of more than 8,000 troops, but Mr. Biden signed the bill.
In late 2020, President Trump vetoed the NDAA. Amid other objections, Mr. Trump vehemently opposed the effort to redesignate 10 Army bases originally named in honor of Confederate generals. Congress overrode the veto, the only successful override during Mr. Trump’s four-year term.
Earlier this month, the Army officially rechristened Fort Bragg in North Carolina as Fort Liberty. That name change, and others to installations across the country, is absent from defense spending legislation this time but is alive on the presidential campaign trail.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence said they would change the name of the North Carolina base back to Fort Bragg. Mr. DeSantis called it an “iconic name.” Mr. Pence said the change is another example of “political correctness” in the Pentagon.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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