![Patrol in Afghanistan by [Image via The U.S. Army/Flickr]](https://staticr1.blastingcdn.com/media/photogallery/2017/9/19/660x290/b_502x220x82/patrol-in-afghanistan-by-the-us-armyflickr_1579141.jpg "Patrol in Afghanistan by [Image via The U.S. Army/Flickr]")
The US has a powerful military, and it will become even stronger because the Senate and Donald Trump want to increase this. The new US Military Budget will be the impressive amount of $700 billion according to a report by Reuters. Anyway, there will be a discussion related to government spending in a few months. The chamber is controlled by the Republicans, and they voted 89-8 favoring the increase of the military expenditures and setting policies to control the way the money is spent. This will be supervised by the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
Structure of the expenditures
The bill proposes $640 billion to pay the troops and buy weapons, and about $60 billion to fund US military operations in Iraq, Syria, and other nations according to a report by USA Today. The bill includes a lot of areas, it will increase in more than 2 percent the payment of the military and will assign more than $8 billion to improve the missile defense against the North Korean regime. The bill also bans Kaspersky Labs products from federal government use because the company is based in Russia.
Reconciliation
The House of Representatives also passed its version of the new military budget in July, it is a similar level of expenditures. Both versions have to be reconciled before Congress approves the final version, a final fight is expected because Senate Democrats will approve this only if spending caps on non-military programs are removed.
According to a report by Reuters, this new military budget will be much bigger than the $619 billion spent in 2016, which was limited by previous laws.
More details
The US President wants to find more money for the military by reducing nondefense expenditures, his fellow Republicans are the majority in the Senate and House. Anyway, they will need the support of Democrats to increase the US military budget.
Senator John McCain stated that more military personnel die in avoidable training accidents than in action, so, he wants to end with this problem.
The Pentagon needs money
Jim Mattis, the US Defense Secretary, wanted to close more bases since 2021 to save $10 billion in 5 years according to a report by USA Today. The US Senate and the House rejected his proposal because America has military operations in many countries, so, closing the military bases would be a mistake. Donald Trump is convinced that the Pentagon needs more economic resources to work efficiently.
