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The Senate Armed Services Committee has set down a bipartisan marker, adding $25 billion to President Joe Biden’s proposed $715 billion defense budget. The Pentagon said it was adequate to both defend the nation now and to transform the U.S. military to fight future wars.
The final markup of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act sets the total U.S. defense spending at $777.9 billion, with $740.3 billion for the Pentagon, $27.7 billion for nuclear weapons programs administered by the Energy Department, and another $10 billion for miscellaneous defense-related activities.
It was a stunning rebuke of the Biden budget strategy Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley defended as “an appropriate balance” between preserving present readiness and future modernization but that Republicans derided as “woefully inadequate.”