The Washington Post:
The House easily passed a nearly $700 billion defense bill Tuesday, endorsing a deal struck with Senate negotiators to authorize significantly more resources to Pentagon and military operations than President Trump requested they budget for next year.
The 356-to-70 vote comes after a compromise process that was smoothly bipartisan — a departure from years past, when talks to produce the annual defense bill faltered over bitter political disagreements about spending priorities. The Senate is expected to follow suit by passing the bill in the coming weeks, sending it to the president’s desk.
But the military probably will never see the full windfall lawmakers wrote into the bill, as Congress has yet to approve the federal government’s budget for next year — and is likely to appropriate billions less to cover defense spending than the defense authorization bill outlines.
