Defense policy bill good for WA, and for bipartisanship

Political brinkmanship increasingly defines the business of government in Washington, D.C. Earlier this year, House Republicans brought the nation within days of economic peril by using the debt-ceiling deadline as a bargaining chip to extract spending cuts. Only a last-minute compromise steered the country clear of a catastrophic default.  

It looked likely that, following the same blueprint, the annual defense policy bill would be the latest seemingly inviolable measure to fall victim to this kind of hostage-taking. Republicans under former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., had months ago filled the bill with orders to stop supporting service members who need to travel for abortion services; halt funding for diversity, equity and inclusion programs; and prohibit care sought by transgender members of the military or their families.     

Thankfully, leaders of both parties cast aside those provisions in favor of compromise. The resulting bill’s passage, which President Joe Biden signed Friday, was a win for bipartisanship. Washington’s entire congressional delegation, with the exception of Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Seattle, voted for it. With the victory come programs that are critical for the nation’s security and tangible benefits for the Pacific Northwest’s military installations and its service members.   

To start, the bill will increase pay for service members more than 5% and invests in a number of improvements for military families, including housing, child care and health care. There’s also $650 million in projects that address climate change, help conserve energy and more.

Washington’s own military installations have much to gain within the Defense Department’s $886 billion budget. Among them: $200 million will go to safeguard aging and seismically vulnerable dry docks in Kitsap County that ensure the readiness of the country’s ballistic missile submarine fleet. At Joint Base Lewis-McChord, about $108 million will construct new and needed barracks.

There’s plenty of aspects of the 3,000-page legislation that can be criticized. But most of Congress rightly saw the failure of its passage as a risk the nation can’t afford to take.

“The bill is far from perfect,” said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Bellevue, the ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee. “But it reflects hard-fought compromise in a time of partisan gridlock and a strong national defense that advances U.S. priorities at home and abroad.”

The vote comes the same month that Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville ended his protest blockade of about 425 promotions in high-ranking military positions — another misguided attempt to sow chaos to achieve a culture-war victory.

More than six in 10 U.S. adults have little to no confidence at all in the future of the county’s political system, according to the Pew Research Center. Politically shared victories will be hard to come by in the bruising election year ahead. It’s good to cap 2023 with compromise winning the day over extremism.