On Wednesday, the US Senate voted in favor of the US defense budget for 2022. In the 100-member Senate, the $770 billion ($252,000 billion) defense spending bill for the fiscal year beginning October 1 that President Joe needs Biden only to sign it until it goes into effect, by 89 votes to ten. The House of Representatives also approved the budget last week by 363 votes to 70.
As a result of intense negotiations between Democrats and Republicans, the approved version now spends $25 billion more than Biden originally requested, 5 percent higher than last year’s budget. The budget law provides for a 2.7 percent increase in soldiers’ salaries, the purchase of more combat aircraft and warships, and strategies against geopolitical exclusions such as China and Russia, among other things. Under the latter, $300 million will be allocated to support the Ukrainian armed forces, $4 billion to the European Defense Initiative and another $150 million to the so-called security cooperation in the Baltic region.
As for China, the law is spending $7.1 billion on the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. It also contains a congressional statement supporting the defense of Taiwan, which China considers its own territory but has its own government since 1949. In addition, the US Department of Defense prohibits the acquisition of forced labor products from Xinjiang in northwest China.
The upper house of the US legislature was unable to pass the budget at the end of November due to reservations by Republican lawmakers and some of their fellow Democrats. Then the Republicans voted “no” because Democrats, with a hairy majority in the Senate, did not allow enough votes on the amendments. One such initiative would have required additional sanctions on the North Stream-2 project, which bypasses Russian natural gas bypassing Ukraine and Poland under the Baltic Sea, and whose critics argue the pipeline system would endanger US allies. And in the end, this appropriation was not included in the approved budget. Some pro-Democratic senators have rejected the budget, citing a high budget of $770 billion, saying that resources should be spent on health, education and climate protection.
The US defense budget can be adopted every year since 1961, usually with significant bipartisan support. The legislation deals with a number of defense policy issues, from warships to be purchased to soldiers’ salaries.
(via MTI)
