Yesterday, the U.S. House passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which will push defense funding above $1 trillion for fiscal year 2026. Seventeen House Democrats joined all but four Republicans in approving the bill, which passed in a vote of 231-196. The U.S. is set to rocket past the trillion-dollar mark in defense spending through the NDAA’s authorization of $892.6 billion for defense programs, combined with the $150 billion defense spending increase included in the Republican budget signed into law on July 4 by President Trump. The House-passed NDAA will need to be reconciled with the Senate’s version, which is expected to pass soon and includes even higher defense spending.
Many of the House Democrats who joined Republicans in approving the NDAA are members of the economically-conservative Blue Dog Coalition that claims to pursue “fiscally-responsible policies.” However, the Pentagon has never passed a financial audit, the only federal agency that has never done so, having failed seven in a row since it became required to undertake them starting in 2018. Earlier this year, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and other Pentagon watchdogs identified at least $60 billion in annual savings that could be realized through cuts to defense programs they flagged as wasteful or inefficient.
The NDAA, one of a few annual must-pass bills in Congress, was again laden with Republican-led provisions panned as “right-wing culture war” fodder by their Democratic counterparts. One GOP amendment bars the military’s health insurance program from covering gender transition care, while another restricts abortion care for service members. For the third year in a row, House Republicans used the NDAA to attach provisions that would block diversity initiatives, as well as climate measures. The Senate may seek to remove these House measures. The House NDAA also features a bipartisan plan to streamline defense procurement. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, said that every Democratic amendment was rejected and voted against the bill.
Of the 17 House Democrats who voted for the NDAA, six are members of the Blue Dog Coalition, including two of the group’s three co-chairs, Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.) and Vicente Gonzalez (Texas). They were joined by Blue Dog Reps. Henry Cuellar (Texas), caucus whip Adam Gray (Calif.), Jared Golden (Maine), and Josh Gottheimer (N.J.). The six make up a majority of the group's 10 members in this Congress.
