House passes $619B defense policy bill

[Geee]

The Hill:

The House on Friday easily passed this year’s annual defense policy bill with bipartisan support in a 375-34 vote.

 

The bill would authorize a total of $618.7 billion in spending, including $59.5 billion for a war fund known as the overseas contingency operations (OCO) account.

 

Another $8.3 billion from the OCO account — $3.2 billion more than Obama requested — would be used for base budget requirements such as a pay raise for troops and troop increases.

 

The troop pay raise would be 2.1 percent, above the president’s request for a 1.6 percent pay raise.

 

End strength would also be increased across the services. The Navy would remain at 323,900 troops, but the new caps for the rest would be 476,000 for the Army, 185,000 for the Marines and 321,000 for the Air Force.