Senate passes defense bill that will raise troop pay, end transgender dependents’ coverage

WASHINGTON —  The Senate passed a defense bill Wednesday that authorizes significant pay raises for junior enlisted service members and boost overall military spending to $895 billion while 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 legislation in recent years has become a battleground for cultural issues. Republicans this year sought to tack on priorities for social conservatives to the package, contributing to a months-long negotiation over the bill and a falloff in support from Democrats.

Still, all but a handful of Senate Democrats — as well as nearly all Republicans — voted for the bill’s final passage, sending the legislation to President Biden.

The bill “isn’t perfect, but it still includes some very good things that Democrats fought for,” said Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) 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 to 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. GOP senators had argued for a generational boost to defense spending this year, and are planning another push for more defense funding once they control the White House and Congress next year.

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

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said in a floor speech this week that without the top-line increase “major bill provisions like a pay raise for enlisted service members will come at the expense of investments in the critical weapons systems and munitions that deter conflict and keep them safe.”

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 must rely on food banks and other government assistance programs to make ends meet.

“It includes major quality of life improvements, enhancing things like child care, housing, medical services, employment support for military spouses and much more,” said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The legislation also directs resources toward a more confrontational approach to China, including establishing a fund that could be used to send military resources to Taiwan in much the same way that the U.S. has backed Ukraine. It also invests in new military technologies, including artificial intelligence, and bolsters the U.S. production of ammunition.

The U.S. has also moved in recent years to ban the military from purchasing Chinese products, and the defense bill extended that with prohibitions on Chinese goods, from garlic in military commissaries to drone technology.

The Chinese foreign ministry responded to that move last week by calling the bans laughable.

“I don’t think it could ever occur to garlic that it would pose a ‘major threat’ to the U.S.,” said Mao Ning, a ministry spokeswoman. “From drones to cranes, from refrigerators to garlic, more and more Chinese-made products have been accused by the U.S. of ‘posing national security risks.’ But has the U.S. shown any reliable evidence or rationale to back up those accusations?”

In Congress, Republican and Democratic lawmakers have been mostly united in their stance that China is a rising threat. Instead, it was culture war issues that divided lawmakers on the bill, which took months to negotiate.

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 President-elect 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, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) said she has always voted for the annual package, known as 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.”

Groves writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Didi Tang contributed to this report.