Lawmakers finalize 2008 Defense spending bill

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Lawmakers finalize 2008 Defense spending bill
By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, December 8, 2007


WASHINGTON — House and Senate negotiators on Thursday finalized plans for a $507 billion fiscal 2008 Defense authorization bill, the last remaining piece in next year’s defense budget.

Congress is expected to pass the measure next week and put the bill before the president by the end of the month. The measure does not contain up to $50 billion in supplemental war funding under consideration in Congress but does feature a host of spending and policy priorities for next year.

In a news conference Friday, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., called the compromise a major advance for troops’ health care and assistance for their families.

Along with reauthorizing numerous specialty pays and recruitment bonuses, the measure confirms a 3.5 percent pay raise for all military personnel and more flexibility with leave time.

The legislation also includes major portions of the Wounded Warrior Act — passed by the Senate earlier this year — to repair and refocus the military health care system in the wake of scandals at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington earlier this year.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=50811