Well, we hope Congress had a restful summer recess, because things are about to get very busy for the military-minded members (and we’re not talking about yesterday’s apparent War on Drugs redux).
On Tuesday, with the fiscal year kicking off next month, Congress returned to make some big spending decisions (lest we forget about the looming government shutdown). The National Defense Authorization Act, everyone’s favorite annual must-pass defense spending bill, is a big chunk of that—and, put technically, lots of shit is still up in the air.
So, with the Senate set to begin procedural votes on the ever-important defense bill today, we thought a bit of a primer might be helpful. Here’s what to expect when you’re expecting the NDAA.
Congressional chaos: As we’ve said before, the NDAA is typically the one thing everyone can get behind—the one rare glimmer of hope in an otherwise gridlocked and food fight-focused Congress. This year? Not so much.
Here’s what’s happened so far:
- The Pentagon dragged its feet on submitting its budget, finally delivering in late June (with some paperwork outstanding). The request came in at $848.3B discretionary, with another $113.3B of defense spending routed through Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.
- The House Armed Services Committee (HASC), which was forced to mark up before DoD coughed up its numbers, authorized $884.3B total ($882.9B for DoD) and tucked in much of the SPEED Act’s innovation provisions.
- The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) went bigger, authorizing $913.9B total ($878.7B for DoD) by adding billions for munitions, foreign military support, shipbuilding, and cleaning up some accounting quirks.
- Meanwhile, appropriators are already split: The House defense bill sits at $831.5B, while the Senate put forth a more generous $851.9B package.
Back to reality: Neither chamber has taken its NDAA to the floor yet. As we said, the Senate should kick off procedural voting today. Meanwhile, the House Rules Committee meets next Monday to sort through nearly 700 amendments on issues ranging from border security to counter-drone tech to Taiwan, and debate will likely begin next week.
Program punch-ups: Beneath the toplines, some fights are emerging:
- F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: The Pentagon asked for 47 jets. HASC stuck with that number, SASC added 10 more (57 total), and House appropriators went wild with 69. Everyone loves a fast little plane.
- A-10 Warthog and E-7 Wedgetail: The DoD wants to retire these time-tested workhorses, but both armed services committees have pushed back. Long live the workhorses.
- Golden Dome: The next-gen homeland missile shield is funded only through reconciliation ($25B), but both committees updated national missile defense policy to bake it in. House appropriators authorized $13B in space and missile defense that could be routed to Golden Dome, but the Senate wants more to go on. Guessing Trump has thoughts on this.
- Ukraine: The HASC NDAA authorizes $400M for military aid, SASC $500M, and Senate defense appropriators a much bigger $800M. House appropriators added zero. Pretty antisocial, tbh.
The looming question: Will any of this matter? FY25 defense spending ended up under a full-year continuing resolution (CR) for the first time ever, and it sure looks like we’re on the path for another with government funding set to expire at the end of the month.
Congress’s first move will be to pass another short-term CR, then if the Hill can’t get its act together, the Pentagon may spend a second year living under CR rules. As Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said in August, “If you like chaos, then you’re seeing a lot of it.”