The US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee has supported a proposal to raise spending for the Department of Defense (DoD) by $37bn for fiscal year 2023, reported Reuters.
The vote in favour of this $37bn amendment to the annual National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) was 42-17, and makes way for a DoD budget of at least $810bn in 2023.
The Senate Armed Services Committee already gave its backing for a $45bn increase in its version of the bill.
Now the final amount will be fixed by the two chambers when they meet at a conference on the bill.
The $37bn increase includes $2.5bn for fuel costs, $550m for Ukraine, funding for eight F-18 Super Hornet fighter jets, five ships, five C-130 Hercules planes, and approximately $1bn for four Patriot missile units.
In March, the US president had requested a peacetime national defence budget of $813bn, which features a 4.6% pay raise for troops in the wake of the Russian aggression in Ukraine.
Of the $813bn, $773bn was reserved for the DoD.
Nearly $40bn of the US president’s national defence budget had also been set aside for other security-related programmes at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Energy, and other agencies.
In 2021, the NDAA approved $778bn in defence spending, which is more than the $25bn proposed by the US president, reported Reuters.
Last week, US President Joe Biden approved $1bn in security assistance to improve the abilities of the Ukrainian armed forces in their fight against the Russian military incursion.
This military package includes approximately $350m from the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA).
