Here’s how House and Senate changed parts of Biden’s defense budget request

The largest proposed increase in the Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of the 2025 defense policy bill is dedicated to DoD procurement, which senators bumped up by nearly $10 billion more than the President requested.

Meanwhile, the House version of the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act authorizes $163.59 billion for procurement — about $2.8 billion, or 1.7%, less than the presidential request. The reduction includes a cut to the Navy shipbuilding account, with no funding to procure the seventh Constellation-class (FFG) frigate.

The latest NDAA primer from the Congressional Research Service lays out how much funding each chamber is proposing for specific defense budget activities in their versions of the NDAA in comparison to what President Joe Biden requested earlier this year.

The operations and maintenance account also gets a boost in the Senate version of the NDAA. While the House version of the defense bill authorized $295 billion — $1 billion less than requested — senators want to increase the O&M account by about $9 billion.

The research and development account sees a $3 billion hike under the Senate version of the NDAA, while the House has proposed authorizing $143 billion for R&D, matching the President’s request.

The military personnel account, however, sees a $3.8 billion hike under the House version of the bill to mainly support the proposed 19.5% pay raise for junior enlisted service members and an expanded housing allowance benefit as part of the quality-of-life initiative package.

While some senators have indicated their openness to reforming junior enlisted pay, the SASC authorized a 4.5% pay raise for service members in its version of the bill and kept the military personnel account at the same funding level as the President requested.

The Biden Administration said it “strongly opposed” making any significant changes to the basic pay schedule before the completion of the Fourteenth Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation, which started in January 2023 and should be wrapped up at the beginning of 2025.

“In January, service members received a 5.2% basic pay increase, the largest since 2003, coupled with an average 5.4% increase in basic allowance for housing and a 1.7% increase in basic allowance for subsistence. The President’s FY 2025 Budget Request includes a basic pay raise of 4.5 percent. If the President’s FY 2025 request is enacted, service members will have received a 15% basic pay increase in just three years. The House proposed changes would lead to pay compression in some parts of the enlisted military basic pay table,” the Office of Management and Budget wrote in June.

“Section 1801 would cost over $3.3 billion in FY 2025 and more than $21.9 billion in FYs 2025-2029,” OMB wrote.

The military construction account also got a $3.1 billion boost under the Senate version of the bill.

The SASC-approved defense bill authorizes a $25 billion hike above the Fiscal Responsibility Act limits to “accelerate equipment recapitalization, increase military construction, address the highest-priority unfunded requirements of the military services and combatant commanders, decrease the department’s facility maintenance backlog, and strengthen the defense industrial base.”

While Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) has called for a “generational investment” in the U.S. military, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) voted against his own bill, saying he “needed to vote against passage of this bill because it includes a funding increase that cannot be appropriated without breaking lawful spending caps and causing unintended harm to our military.”

“I appreciate the need for greater defense spending to ensure our national security, but I cannot support this approach,” he added.

Lawmakers are on a summer recess until Sept. 9, leaving them with just three weeks to avert a government shutdown.

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