U.S. Senator John Boozman applauded passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a critical authorization bill that supports our nation’s troops, their families and our military installations.
“This bill is vital to to ensuring that our men and women in uniform have the tools they need to protect our national security,” Boozman said. “Through extensive bipartisan negotiations, Congress was able to pass this bill that paves the way for us to rebuild and modernize our military under the next administration, supports our allies amid growing threats and authorizes the largest pay raise for service members in six years. I encourage the President to quickly sign this bill into law.”
Boozman also pointed to a big win in the final bill for dual-service military families and single service members living together who were facing drastic reductions in the housing allowance in the previous version of this bill. Boozman led efforts to encourage Senate and House Armed Services Committee leadership to strip this provision from the final bill as it would have deprived these service members of their earned benefits.
“The proposal to eliminate these earned benefits would be unfair for many of our men and women in uniform who rely on housing assistance to make financial ends meet. I’m pleased the final bill excluded this ill-advised plan,” Boozman said.
In addition to creating significant financial hardship for many service members and their families, the provisions in the earlier Senate legislation would have brought about costly, new administrative burdens and unintended consequences to the military services.
