The robust Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 Department of Defense spending bill—that passed the House on Thursday with Rep. Chris Smith’s (R-NJ) strong support—provides comprehensive support to U.S. military service men and women, with much-needed funding for new equipment, military readiness programs, and health care.

“This critically-important legislation ensures our troops have the funding needed to maintain operations and helps restore military readiness,” Smith said. “Years of stopgap defense spending bills have left our armed forces with extreme uncertainty, and I am pleased the House has made it a priority to pass a full-year appropriations package. The Senate now must act to ensure our troops are given the stability needed to succeed.”

Overall, the $674.6 billion appropriations bill provides a spending boost of over $17 billion more in base military funding than in FY2018—and is consistent with the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 which the House passed in May. Servicemen and women at Joint-Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst would benefit from the across-the-board military pay raise of 2.6 percent—the largest pay increase in nine years.

The bill also helps restore military readiness with $245.9 billion in funding for training, maintenance, and base operations, and $92.4 billion for research and development of new defense systems and technologies including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Israeli Cooperative Programs, and nuclear force modernization.  

“Military officials have long warned about the combat readiness of U.S. armed forces because of stopgap funding, poor equipment and lack of support,” Smith said. “It is vital that we provide our service men and women with all the support they need to get the job done.”

The legislation also funds critical health care programs and equipment procurement, including:

•   $22.7 billion for 12 Navy ships

•   $9.4 billion for 93 F-35 aircraft

•   $2.3 billion for 15 KC-46 refueling tankers, including funding for the 24 tankers that are coming to Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in FY 2021.

•   $34.4 billion to expand important cancer, traumatic brain injury, sexual assault prevention and response and psychological health research

•   $1.9 billion for 24 F/A/-18E/F Super Hornets

Smith has drafted legislation that will ensure funding that is intended for military construction projects is used to support the local labor economy and promote our local communities, by giving preference for these projects to contractors with state licenses.