New War Budget - larger than the last - again

*Action in Congress for a new bigger military/war budget*

Congress yesterday enacted the war budget authorization bill (HR8070) for fy2025 
*The total authorized is $895.3 billion*.

That was an increase from last year’s authorization of $883.70 billion of $11.6 billion, in just one year.

The vote was 217 yes vs 199 no. All OR Democrats voted NO, including Andrea Salinas who last year voted in favor of the authorization with the OR Republicans. On this vote, both OR Republicans voted in favor. If you are in Washington state, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez ( R ) voted Yes. She is the US Representative for southern WA, including Vancouver. 

While votes on these authorization bills are usually overwhelmingly in favor, the Republicans added many poison-pill amendments which the Democrats could not accept. Therefore, many Democrats voted No as a result, not necessarily because they opposed the military war budget. 

 More details on the votes themselves are available here: H.R. 8070:Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National DefenseAuthorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025 -- GovTrack.us This bill will now go the Senate. Likely the Senate will not approve this and will instead enact their own version. In order for a bill to be enacted, both chambers must enact the exact same language. If the Senate passes a different version, the House and Senate will form a Joint Committee to come up with a bill with the exact same language and then both chambers will vote again on this new agreed upon bill. 

Now is great time to call or otherwise contact your US Senator, urging that they vote No on the NDAA bill when it comes for a vote. Contact info is available here: U.S. Senate: Senators

Once both chambers have approved the same language, the bill will go to the President for his signature. After the authorization bill has been approved the second major step begins: The appropriation stage, in which the House and Senate Appropriation sub-committees consider the Authorization and decide if all that was in the Authorization bill will have money appropriated., or if some amount are not enough. This is another stage in which people can have influence by suggesting cuts to the budget