Members of the United States military may receive their biggest pay raise in nine years if a defense bill just approved by the U.S. House becomes law.
The $716-billion National Defense Authorization Act would provide a 2.6 percent raise to the military. The Senate still needs to vote on the bill and if passed it will head to president Donald Trump’s desk.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders applauded the bill’s passage and urged swift passage in the Senate.
The bill “supports the president’s request for a pay raise for our troops and rebuilds the military to deter adversaries and maintain the administration’s posture of peace through strength,” she said.
The raises are just one aspect of the NDAA that will impact Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and Ohio’s defense industry as a whole.
The defense bill would provide $182 million in funding for an expansion of the National Air and Space Intelligence Center at Wright-Patt. The project would be one of the biggest in the base’s history.
Along with the NASIC funding, the bill provides more than $1 billion toward research and development programs for the Air Force Research Lab at Wright-Patt. The NDAA will also include $335.8 million to address issues of toxic chemicals from getting into local water supply at Air Force bases.
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© 2018 the Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio)
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