The House voted Wednesday to cut $3.6 billion from the Pentagon’s Overseas Contingency Operations account, lopping off much of the war funding Republicans added to the defense appropriations legislation passed by the chamber and opposed by the White House.
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House members passed a bipartisan amendment to the fiscal year 2014 bill from Tea Party Caucus member Rep. Michael Mulvaney (R-S.C.)–with co-sponsors including House Budget Committee Ranking Member Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)–that would reduce the OCO account by $3.6 billion but exempt National Guard and Reserve equipment. The White House said Monday President Barack Obama could veto the $512.5 billion defense appropriations the House Appropriations Committee approved June 14, citing as one of its qualms $5.1 billion the panel added to Obama’s OCO request.
Wednesday’s afternoon vote came after the House already voted to cut $218 million from an infrastructure fund for Afghanistan and $554 million for Afghan security forces.
Hours after the vote on Mulvaney’s amendment the House passed the defense appropriations bill by a 315-109 margin. The legislation calls for setting the base defense budget at $512.5 billion, or $3.4 billion below the Pentagon’s request. The HAC-approved bill called for $85.8 billion in OCO funding, though after the successful amendments to reduce that figure it is now closer to $81 billion, a HAC spokeswoman said.
Fiscal conservative and government watchdog groups including Taxpayers for Common Sense hailed the war-funding-reduction votes. The taxpayers’ group’s president, Ryan Alexander, argued for “too long defense spending has been viewed as sacrosanct and impervious to cuts.”
House members also OK’d an amendment on Tuesday from Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) to move $10 million from defense-wide procurement to defense health research funding.
The chamber tackled most of the votes on weapons-related amendments on Tuesday, when it began debating the defense appropriations bill.
It rejected an amendment from Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) to cut $70.2 million for and East Coast missile-defense site that lawmakers added to the Pentagon’s budget request, as well as a proposal from Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) to strike $107 million from the bill that supports the 14 additional Ground-based Interceptors the Pentagon wants.
The House did, though, pass a measure from Rep. Joe Heck (R-Nev.) to spend $15 million in research and development funding to build a U.S. version of the Iron Dome short-range rocket-defense program used in Israel.
The House also approved an amendment banning the Pentagon from furloughing civilian employees in FY ’14, crafted by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.).