WASHINGTON -- The House passed a defense budget Friday that exceeds the deal cut by Congress and President Barack Obama last summer, and that would have to be paid for with cash taken from poverty programs, health care and the federal workforce.
The National Defense Authorization Actpermits $642 billion in defense spending next year. The White House has threatened to veto the bill, which passed 299 to 120, citing more than 30 changes to the budget the administration was seeking.
But the measure also adds $8 billion more than called for in the Budget Control Act that Congress agreed to last summer in exchange for raising the nation's debt limit.
"We increase the spending for defense due to the priorities that we feel are most important and the constitutional requirement we have to provide for the common defense," Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) said. "But we will cut in other areas of the budget so that we comply fully with the deficit reduction act."
