House Approves $288 Billion for Defense

The House on Thursday approved a $288-billion defense authorization bill that includes funds for a military pay raise and boosts President Clinton’s budget request by more than $8 billion.

The bill authorizes $1.8 billion for a 4.8% military pay raise effective Jan. 1, and backs changes to the military retirement system already endorsed by the Senate earlier this year in a bid to reverse declining retention and recruitment rates.

The measure, approved 365 to 58, closely tracks a Senate defense authorization bill approved two weeks ago. It was designed to help replenish military funds sapped by declining budgets and increasing responsibilities.

It adds billions of dollars to military readiness items, such as ammunition, training, base operations and maintenance, that Pentagon supporters say have been badly depleted by years of declining budgets and increasing overseas deployments.

The bill also includes a series of measures intended to boost security at U.S. nuclear weapon labs and tighten high-technology export controls after a congressional report found that China had stolen nuclear secrets during two decades of espionage.

The measure also allows the deployment of troops to the U.S.-Mexico border for anti-drug and counter-terrorism operations.

On a 242-181 vote, the House endorsed an amendment offered by Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. (D-Ohio) to authorize the Defense Department, at the request of the attorney general or Treasury secretary, to dispatch troops to assist the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Customs Service in their border drug interdiction and counter-terrorism activities.

“Our current policy to stop drugs and terrorists along the border has failed,” said Traficant, a former sheriff and drug counselor. “The No. 1 security threat facing America, the weak link, is our border.”

But critics termed the amendment, opposed by the Defense Department, as unnecessary and ill-advised. Instead of dispatching armed soldiers untrained in civilian law enforcement tactics to the border, Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) said Congress should provide more funds for federal law enforcement.