Happy Friday! House Republicans narrowly passed their contentious defense bill with amendments striking down a military abortion policy and diversity initiatives. That means another clash with the Senate lies ahead. And the Biden administration announced another student debt relief program. Here’s what you need to know as you head into the weekend.
House Passes ‘Anti-Woke’ Defense Bill, Setting Up Clash With the Senate
Speaker Kevin McCarthy and far-right Republicans won a close victory Friday as the House passed an $886 billion annual defense policy bill larded with amendments that touch on divisive cultural issues including abortion access and gender-affirming surgery.
The House version of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act passed 219-210, largely along party lines. Four Republicans voted against the bill and four Democrats voted for it. The House version of the legislation is expected to be doomed in the Senate, where the “anti-woke” amendments stand little chance of gaining approval. This sets up a clash over the must-pass defense bill that could consume increasingly scarce time in a Congress that also needs to pass a dozen funding bills to keep the government operating after the fiscal year ends in September.
The battle continues: The heavily partisan vote marks the end of six decades of bipartisan support for the defense bill, The Washington Post’s Abigail Hauslohner and Paul Kane noted Friday. Punchbowl’s John Bresnahan said that McCarthy’s alliance with hardline conservatives turned “the normally bipartisan annual defense authorization bill into a culture war battlefield.”
The White House indicated that President Biden would not sign the bill in its current state. “It's very difficult to see the president supporting legislation that would make it harder for Americans to serve in uniform, and to not be able to do so with dignity, would not be able to do so with the proper care that they need both medical and mental care,” National Security Council coordinator John Kirby told CNN. “It's very difficult to see that the president would ever, ever sign legislation that would put our troops at greater risk or put our readiness at risk.”
Republicans defended their bill, saying they were battling to rid the military of what they see as “woke” policies that focus on gender, race and sexuality. “Anything that detracts from the mission, which is to protect our nation and make us the most effective fighting force on earth, is a distraction and a waste of money,” Montana Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale tweeted. “And that includes rainbow bullets on a helmet!”
Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy elaborated on the GOP approach. “It is core and fundamental to defense that we stop making the Defense Department a social engineering experiment wrapped in a uniform,” he said on the House floor Thursday. “The American people I’ve talked to back home don’t want a weak military; they don’t want a woke military; they don’t want rainbow propaganda on bases; they don’t want to pay for troops’ sex changes.”
Perhaps the most divisive addition to the bill was an amendment that would ban the reimbursement of expenses for service members who travel out of state to receive abortions and related medical care. Democrats warned that such a ban would make it very difficult if not impossible for them to support the bill.
Some amendments pushed by hardliners failed to pass through the committee process and so were not included in the bill that passed the House. An amendment from Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene that would have rescinded $300 million in military aid for Ukraine was not in the final bill, nor was a provision from Virginia Republican Rep. Bob Good that would have allowed the Defense Department to continue to use the names of Confederate generals on military bases.
An earlier version of the bill, without the controversial amendments, passed out of committee with broad bipartisan support, but that spirit of bipartisanship evaporated after Republican hardliners made their changes to the bill.
“Extreme MAGA Republicans have chosen to hijack the historically bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act to continue attacking reproductive freedom and jamming their right-wing ideology down the throats of the American people,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic whip Katherine Clark and caucus chair Pete Aguilar said in a statement. “House Republicans have turned what should be a meaningful investment in our men and women in uniform into an extreme and reckless legislative joyride.”
Rep. Adam Smith, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee who backed the earlier version of the bill, slammed the amended version for its “an agenda rooted in racism, misogyny, bigotry, ignorance, and hatred.”
What comes next: The Senate needs to pass its own version of the NDAA, which is expected to be similar to the House bill before the controversial amendments were added.
Some Republicans recognized that their victory was likely to be short-lived. “I think it’ll probably be a totally different bill when we get it back later this year,” Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina said. “I don’t know what [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer will do, but I can’t imagine that he’ll go along with all of the amendments that were attached to the NDAA this week.”
That message, however, did not resonate with House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry, a Republican from Pennsylvania. “We are not going to relent, we are not going to back down, we’re not going to give up on the cause that is righteous,” he told reporters. Perry pledged “to use every single tool at our disposal” to defend the hardline amendments to the bill, calling them “a huge victory.”
McCarthy has suggested that he wants the House and Senate to hash out a compromise – with a team from the House that includes Greene, who pledged to fight for the removal of Ukraine aid – but there’s a chance that, given the shortage of time, he may simply bring the Senate version up for a vote in the House.
That should enable him to win back Democratic support and pass the defense policy bill on a bipartisan basis – but it would also risk sparking a rebellion by far-right Republicans that could cost him his speakership.
Biden Administration Announces $39 Billion in Student Debt Relief
The Biden administration announced Friday that will wipe out a total of $39 billion in federal student debt for more than 800,000 borrowers.
The Department of Education said that the loan forgiveness is the result of administrative fixes made to properly account for qualifying payments in income-driven repayment plans. The administration says that some prior payments were not properly accounted for, impeding borrowers’ progress in qualifying to have their debt discharged.
“For far too long, borrowers fell through the cracks of a broken system that failed to keep accurate track of their progress towards forgiveness,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement. “By fixing past administrative failures, we are ensuring everyone gets the forgiveness they deserve, just as we have done for public servants, students who were cheated by their colleges, and borrowers with permanent disabilities, including veterans. This Administration will not stop fighting to level the playing field in higher education.”
The Department of Education says that until next year it will continue to identify and notify borrowers who hit the forgiveness thresholds, which stand at 240 or 300 qualifying monthly payments depending on the loan and repayment details.
The latest plan comes two weeks after the Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s controversial action to forgive up to $20,000 in debt for millions of borrowers. Biden promised to pursue additional debt relief measures after the court ruling. His administration says it has now approved nearly $117 billion in student loan forgiveness for more than 3.4 million borrowers.
Federal student loan payments, which have been paused because of the pandemic, are set to resume in October.
Number of the Day: $20 Billion
The Biden administration has announced a competition for $20 billion in grants to fund clean energy projects around the country.
According to a White House fact sheet, “The $14 billion National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF) competition will provide grants to support two-to-three national clean financing institutions that will partner with the private sector to provide accessible, affordable financing for tens of thousands of clean technology projects nationwide.”
A second program, the $6 billion Clean Communities Investment Accelerator (CCIA) competition, “will work in tandem with the NCIF by providing grants to support two-to-seven hub nonprofit organizations that will provide funding and technical assistance to community lenders working to finance clean technology projects – from retrofitting homes to be highly efficient and zero emissions to electrifying small businesses’ delivery fleets – in low-income and disadvantaged communities.”
The programs will be overseen by a “green bank” formally known as the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which was created in the Inflation Reduction Act President Biden signed into law last summer.
Read more about the program at the Associated Press and The Washington Post.
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Fiscal News Roundup
- House Narrowly Passes Defense Bill, Setting Up Showdown Over Social Issues – New York Times
- The House Just Passed a Defense Bill With Controversial Abortion, LGBTQ Measures. It Doesn’t Stand a Chance in the Senate – Politico
- These Lawmakers Bucked Their Party on an Unusually Partisan Defense Bill – The Hill
- Biden Administration Announces $39 Billion in Student Debt Relief for 804,000 Borrowers – The Hill
- House Panel Advances Funding Bill With Deep Cuts to Health Agencies – The Hill
- IRS Says It Collected $38 Million From More Than 175 High-Income Tax Delinquents – Associated Press
- Biden’s Top Legislative Director to Step Down – Politico
- GOP Mulls Retooling Message as Inflation Rate Plummets – The Hill
- Top Fed Official Expects Two More Interest Rate Hikes This Year – Axios
- Americans Are Widely Pessimistic About Democracy in the United States, Poll Finds – Associated Press
- World Adds 165 Million More Poor as Debt Consumes Governments’ Funds – Washington Post
Views and Analysis
- Who Gets Credit for Cooling Inflation? Biden, if Not Bidenomics – Catherine Rampell, Washington Post
- MAGA Negotiator? McCarthy Gives Taylor Greene Key Committee Seat – Tori Otten, New Republic
- What the GOP’s Sizable Defections on Ukraine Portend – Aaron Blake, Washington Post
- State of the Economy: The Vibes vs. the Data – Neil Irwin, Axios
- DC’s Cluster of Disconnect: Congress Needs to Get Real About Our Dire Financial Condition – Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN), The Hill
- Insurance Coverage Isn't Guaranteed for the New Over-the-Counter Birth Control Pill – Rachel Roubein, Washington Post
- Wonking Out: In Economics, a Game of Teams – Paul Krugman, New York Times