House approves $832B defense funding bill with pay boost for troops

WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives passed a bill early Friday that would allocate roughly $832 billion in defense funding for fiscal year 2026, including a boost in pay for troops as well as increased research and development spending.

The Department of Defense Appropriations Act cleared the lower chamber 221-209, with five Democrats joining almost every Republican in support.

“With the Trump Administration’s record-high recruitment levels, this bill provides the resources to ensure our military forces remain the most capable and lethal in the world,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said in a statement.

“It supports our servicemembers and their families with investments in health care, training, and military family services while it firmly blocks taxpayer dollars from being used to fund radical social agendas like DEI initiatives, abortion travel, and gender-transition procedures,” he added.

“This bill reflects President Trump’s Peace through Strength agenda, and it puts America’s strength, security, and values first.”

Reps. Don Davis (D-NC), Jared Golden (D-Maine), Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas), Adam Gray (D-Calif.) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) all voted in favor of the measure.

Davis said he broke ranks with his party to keep an Air Force base in his state “intact” and because service members “deserve a pay raise.”

Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) opposed it on the GOP side.

Before the bill was passed, Greene and Massie joined “Squad” Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Summer Lee (D-Pa.) to try to cut $500 million in funding for a cooperative program that boosts Israel’s missile defense systems — only for the measure to fail in a 422-6 vote.

“Tonight all of my amendments to cut $1.6 billion of foreign aid out of our Defense budget failed because both Republicans and Democrats refuse to stop sending your hard earned tax dollars to foreign countries,” Greene wrote in an X post.

“We are $37 TRILLION in debt and Congress will never ever fix it because they will never ever stop the insane out of control spending that drives inflation up and makes your life unaffordable.”

The House measure comes only a few weeks after congressional Republicans gave the thumbs-up to a separate defense plan worth more than $150 billion tucked into President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, $25 billion of which was set aside for a “Golden Dome” missile defense system in the US.

The president’s budget request balanced the increased funding from the Big Beautiful Bill with the annual appropriations process to work out to more than $1 trillion in total defense spending in fiscal year 2026.

In fiscal years 2025, 2024 and 2023, the defense budgets worked out to $895 billion, $841.4 billion and $816.7 billion, respectively.

The latest House bill included provisions to bolster funding for active, National Guard, and reserve military personnel with a 3.8% pay bump for service members.

It also would slash $7 billion from the current operation and maintenance budget, lowering spending in that area to $283 billion.

At least $148 billion will also go toward Defense Department research, development, and testing. Another $1.15 billion will help crack down on international traffickers and fund counter-drug programs.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that the legislation “supports modernization and fundamentally reforms defense acquisition by cutting red tape, eliminating bureaucratic hurdles, and encouraging innovation.”

The Senate Armed Services Committee advanced its own version of the defense spending bill July 9, with additional provisions to prevent taxpayer dollars from funding research carried out by foreign adversaries, including Russia and China.