All things considered, adopting a 416-page, near-$1 trillion spending plan with more than 800 amendments over a 14-1/2 hour span—including more than 11 in deliberative, often heated, debate—is a good day’s work for a congressional committee.
So, there was a bit of congratulatory relief as the clocked crawled toward 12:30 a.m. on June 22 when Chair Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) formally closed the House Armed Forces Committee’s hearing on the proposed $874.2 billion Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (FY24 NDAA).
“This has been a long day and we have accomplished a lot,” Rogers said after the FY24 NDAA, the United States’ annual defense budget, was advanced to the House floor in a 58–1 vote, praising the panel for its bipartisan cooperation in producing a plan that required debate on “less than 50” of the 800-plus amendments….