The House on Tuesday passed a historic defense spending bill, which Rep. Smith voted in support of for the third time, that funds U.S. soldiers, tanks, aircraft, ships, other military equipment, and Defense infrastructure. The U.S. military will get a much-needed boost from this bill, which provides personnel an across-the-board pay increase of 2.4% for the 2018 fiscal year.

    “The men and women of our nation’s military serving around the world deserve our full support, and we must be making every effort to ensure that they are properly equipped for the mission,” Rep. Smith stated.

    “Officials have been warning recently that our military is stretched thin and in some cases poorly equipped, and years of temporary stopgap Defense funding have further drained our military’s combat readiness,” Smith said. “This bill would help remedy these pressing problems, giving more stable support to our service members who deserve it.”

    The Defense Appropriations for FY 2018—the third of recent Defense Appropriations bills, and almost identical to the other two—provides $664 billion in Defense spending, an increase of 11% over the previous fiscal year.

    While the previous two appropriations bills voted on by the House either dealt with national security spending—the “minibus,” which passed last July—or included that package in a larger spending bill—the “omnibus,” which passed in September—the bill passed on Tuesday was a standalone Defense spending package, reinforcing the need for Defense funding which lasts the entire fiscal year and which is not reliant upon temporary funding packages, or continuing resolutions (CRs), as the Senate has not passed an FY 2018 spending bill.

    In particular, Tuesday’s bill would provide $2.4 billion for 15 new KC-46A refueling tanker aircraft—it was announced last year that 24 of the KC-46As would be housed at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.

    It would also fund over 18,000 new servicemembers; provide $4.7 billion for emergency ballistic missile defense; $10 billion for non-war military base budgets; $75 billion for overseas contingency operations (OCO) in the fight against ISIS and $1.2 billion for troop increases in Afghanistan; $706 for cooperation with Israel; over $138 billion for military personnel; and over $34 billion for health programs including sexual assault prevention programs and support for military victims.

    Rep. Smith supported the two previous Defense Appropriations bills, along with the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (Public Law 115-91) which authorized a pay increase for military servicemembers and halted temporarily the additional realignment and closure of U.S. military bases.