Senate OKs Larger Defense Budget

The Senate passed a massive defense authorization bill Wednesday that would give the Pentagon $11.1 billion more than had been requested, setting up an election-year confrontation with President Clinton, who has threatened to veto the legislation.

Defying the administration, senators voted, 68 to 31, to approve a defense authorization bill calling for $265.5 billion in military spending in fiscal 1997.

Clinton favors giving the Pentagon $254.4 billion, an amount that is $8.9 billion below spending for the current year.

In line with Republican priorities, most of the extra money would go for modern weapons and equipment--about half of it through speeding up projects that the individual armed services had planned for later years and the rest by adding new programs.

“There are many risks associated with the administration’s decision to continue to underfund defense,” said Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “The decreases in defense spending planned by the administration are occurring at the same time our military personnel are asked to do more and more.”

But Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), the Senate minority leader, said of the measure: “It exceeds my tolerance level for the amount we ought to spend on defense.”

Twice during debate, senators voted down proposals to cut the level of spending. The closest vote was 55 to 45, defeating a measure that would have cut $4 billion.

Despite the huge price tag, analysts said that the extra spending would not have much effect on California. The major new item affecting the state is authority for the Navy to buy additional F/A-18C/D jet fighters, parts of which are made by Northrop-Grumman in El Segundo.

The bill now goes to a joint House-Senate conference committee, where battles are expected over a series of provisions added to the House version of the legislation, which calls for $267.4 billion, but not the Senate bill. Those provisions include a ban on abortions at military hospitals and discharging service members who test positive for the AIDS virus.

Senators continued working into the night Wednesday on a separate bill to appropriate the money that the defense measure would authorize for fiscal 1997, which begins Oct. 1. The Senate is expected to approve that measure sometime today.

Clinton vetoed a similar defense authorization measure in December that covered fiscal 1996--which ends Sept. 30. After that veto, Republicans charged that the president was “shortchanging” the defense budget. Lawmakers later passed a bill that Clinton signed.

Administration officials said they would recommend that the president veto the Senate version, if it comes to his desk.

The extra $11.1-billion voted by the Senate is massive by almost any standard. The House bill provides for $13 billion more than Clinton is seeking, but that will have to be trimmed to meet new congressional budget ceilings.

Besides the additional F/A-18C/D fighters, the extra funding also would buy an array of helicopters, an oceanographic ship, WC-1303 weather aircraft, prepositioned supply ships and multiple-launch rocket systems.

Clinton has argued that many of the items added by the Republicans are not needed, including an additional $300 million for developing a national missile defense system, $75 million for antisatellite technology and $70 million for development of a space-based laser.

However, members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have publicly expressed apprehension that unless the services get more money for modernization, they may not be able to maintain adequate military preparedness.

They want the Pentagon to boost its overall modernization budget from the $38.9 billion now allocated by the administration to more than $60 billion a year by fiscal 1998. Clinton has cut spending for weapon modernization recently to help maintain readiness.

Despite the administration’s vocal opposition, 18 Democrats joined Republicans in voting for the legislation. California’s senators, both Democrats, split over the issue: Dianne Feinstein supported the bill; Barbara Boxer voted against it.

Clinton had hoped to reduce the post-Cold War defense budget steadily once he took office and had planned to continue the cuts in fiscal 1997 before once again increasing military spending to help put the Pentagon’s weapon modernization program back on track.

However, the money added by the Republicans this time around could be expected to crimp spending for domestic categories, such as education and job training. Under current law, Congress must reconcile spending for domestic and foreign programs to stay within prescribed totals.

Republicans have been pushing hard to make Clinton’s defense policies a major issue in the 1996 presidential campaign but so far have failed to make much headway. Last year, the president stole some of the GOP thunder by restoring some defense money.