U.S. House puts extra $8B in defense budget

WASHINGTON -- Ignoring a White House veto threat, the Republican-controlled House approved a $642 billion defense budget Friday that breaks a deficit-cutting deal with President Barack Obama and restricts his authority in an election-year challenge to the Democratic commander in chief.

The House voted 299-120 for the fiscal 2013 spending blueprint that authorizes money for weapons, aircraft, ships and the war in Afghanistan -- $8 billion more than Obama and congressional Republicans agreed to last summer in the clamor for fiscal austerity.

Insisting they are stronger on defense than the president, Republicans crafted a bill that calls for construction of a missile defense site on the East Coast that the military opposes, bars reductions in the nation's nuclear arsenal and reaffirms the indefinite detention without trial of suspected terrorists, including U.S. citizens captured on American soil.

The GOP provisions are likely to have a short shelf life, as the Democratic-controlled Senate is expected to scrap many of them and stick to the spending level in the deficit agreement.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta met privately last week with senators to argue for the president's proposed budget, a blueprint the Pentagon says is based on a new military strategy focused on Asia, the Mideast and cyberspace as the nation emerges from two long wars. The Senate Armed Services Committee crafts its version of the budget next week.

The House bill is not only a political salvo against Obama, but a reflection of the influence the defense industry has in Congress. Weapons, aircraft carriers and jet fighters mean jobs back home, and lawmakers are loath to cut funds for the military.

In a political shot on the House floor, Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon (R-Calif.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, accused Democrats of "taking all of the jobs out of the military."

The House soundly backed amendments prohibiting the president from making unilateral reductions to the U.S. nuclear arsenal and imposing limits on the ability of the administration to cut the stockpile.

Rep. Rob Andrews (D-N.J.) argued that careful and deliberate elimination of nuclear weapons has been a bipartisan effort by presidents from Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush to George W. Bush and Obama.