A Senate panel has agreed to supersize President Joe Biden's defense budget request in large part to address inflation, but that money would not go toward a beefed up basic pay raise for service members struggling with spiking prices.
The Senate Armed Services Committee's version of the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, would authorize bigger pots of money for the services to offer more special and incentive pay and recruiting and retention bonuses to address inflation concerns, committee staffers told reporters Thursday on condition of anonymity under terms set by the committee.
But for basic pay, senators stuck with a 4.6% pay raise for 2023 in the NDAA that was advanced out of the committee in a 23-3 vote Thursday.
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Still, the chairman of the committee appeared to leave the door open to going higher than 4.6% as the lengthy process of the bill becoming law proceeds.
“We're also, I think, consciously sensitive to the issue, and we still have a long ways to go until final passage,” Chairman Jack Reed, D-R.I., told reporters.
Reed previously told Military.com he had concerns that troops “won't see the same benefit they usually do” from the pay raise because of inflation.
More broadly, the committee agreed to increase the defense budget by $45 billion above what the Biden administration requested…
