The House and Senate have passed similar defense bills, adding billions of dollars to President Clinton's plan, but months of negotiations with the White House and between the two chambers remain before a final version becomes law.
A final vote on the Senate's $265.5 billion version of the defense bill came Wednesday, with the measure passing 68-31. The bill would pump money into weapons programs while avoiding some of the social issues in the House-passed bill. It would add $11.2 billion to President Clinton's budget request.Shortly after the vote, staffers for the House and Senate defense committees held their first meeting to work out differences in their bills.
Top administration officials say they would recommend that Clinton veto the Senate version because it would eliminate some of the spending cuts he recommended.
Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said lawmakers added money to the fiscal year 1997 bill only after hearing unusually public concerns from Clinton's top military commanders about the level of weapons spending.
"The decreases in defense spending planned by the administration are occurring at the same time our military personnel are asked to do more and more," Thurmond said.
Twice during debate, lawmakers voted down proposals to cut the level of defense spending in the bill. The closest vote was 55-45 to defeat an attempt to cut $4 billion.
Like the $267 billion defense spending bill passed in May by the House, the Senate version devotes more than half of the spending added to Clinton's request to weapons purchases.