Senate Dems Overwhelmingly Back Military-Spending Bill Despite Vaccine-Mandate Repeal, in Blow to Biden

The Senate on Thursday advanced with overwhelming Democratic support an expansive annual military funding bill that including a provision to repeal the Covid-vaccine mandate for service members.

The $858 billion National Defense Authorization Act, which cleared the House last week, passed the evenly-divided Senate on an 83-to-eleven vote, with all but five Democrats backing the measure despite a provision repealing the vaccine mandate for service members, which the White House and Pentagon continue to insist is vital to military readiness.

Five Republicans joined the Democratic holdouts in voting against the measure, which now heads to Biden’s desk for final approval.

This year’s NDAA rescinds the requirement that members of the armed forces receive the Covid-19 inoculation as a condition of service. An amendment pitched by Republicans to reimburse and reinstate soldiers who were discharged for refusing to get the shot did not make it into the final language of the bill.

Republicans argue that the vaccine mandate has exacerbated the military’s recruitment shortfall. In early December, a group of Republicans, including 20 governors, sent a joint letter to the Biden administration saying the mandate was undermining the National Guard’s recruitment efforts.

The White House has not yet said whether Biden is considering vetoing the bill to preserve the vaccine-mandate, which Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin still contends is important for the health and safety of U.S. troops.

While the vast majority of active-duty service members are vaccinated, ending the rule would expand eligibility to those who have not yet been vaccinated and do not intend to get the shot. While most of the opposition to the mandate has come from the Republican side of the aisle, Democratic Representative Adam Smith argued recently that the mandate is no longer pragmatic: “But as we are here now, in December of 2022, does that August 2021 policy still make sense? Is it still the right policy? We don’t believe that it is.”

The bill included provisions for a 4.6 percent pay increase for the troops, money for acquisitions of weapons, ships and aircraft, and assistance for Taiwan and Ukraine.

“After most of the year spent deliberating, I’m proud to say the Senate has passed the bipartisan FY23 NDAA and put our service members first,” Republican Senator James Inhofe, the top member of his party on the Senate Armed Services Committee, tweeted Thursday. The legislation is named after Inhofe, who is retiring from the chamber.

The bill allocates at least $800 million to Ukraine for security support and will help bolster Taiwan’s defense capabilities with a commitment of up to $10 billion in State Department military assistance over five years, Politico noted.

Taiwan’s defense ministry thanked the U.S. for the aid, noting it will “ensure the freedom, openness, peace and stability of the Indo-Pacific region,” Reuters reported.

Also being negotiated is a sprawling $1.5 billion bipartisan omnibus appropriations bill. Democrats and some Republicans are scrambling to pass the bill before the holiday recess to avoid a government shutdown.

Republican senator Mike Lee tweeted his suspicion about Democrats attempting to ram through the measure with minimal debate and under a time crunch. He said it’s crucial to “allow members of Congress to consider the yet-to-be-seen, 3,000-page omnibus on its own merits, and without the threat of a Christmas shutdown clouding their judgment.”

“If those advocating for the omnibus can’t make their case for it without threatening a shutdown on Christmas Eve, one has to wonder what they’re hiding,” Lee tweeted Thursday.

House Republicans have argued that the bill should be held up until the next GOP-led Congress takes office in the new year.

Speaking on the House floor Wednesday, Republican representative Chip Roy urged Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell to stop major spending until the GOP assumes its majority in the new year.

“I’m looking at Mitch McConnell when I say this: do your job, Leader McConnell! Do your job and follow the wishes of the American people who gave a majority to Republicans in the House of Representatives,” Roy said. “And let’s STOP this bill”