Obama uses veto for FIFTH time, shutting down defense authorization bill

The bill would ignore military budget limits and restrict detainee transfers from Guantanamo Bay

U.S. President Barack Obama vetoed a defense authorization bill on Thursday with the understanding that the bill would provide a military budget limitation loophole, as well as restrictions on transfers from Guantanamo Bay.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The White House announced that the National Defense Authorization Act would allow sequestration, budget restrictions, to use overseas contingency operations to offset across-the-board cuts if spending passed certain points.

White House spokesman Eric Schultz said, "The president believes that the men and women who serve in our armed forces deserve adequate and responsible funding, not through a gimmick or not through a slush fund but one that would - could withstand scrutiny."

Obama and Congress continue to stand at-odds against each other for the outlines of a budget for fiscal 2016. Though the fiscal year ended October 1, a continuing resolution will keep the government open until December 11. 

President Obama's main goal is to limit non-defense and defense discretionary spending while most Republicans want to lift defense limits and keep non-defense spending controlled.

The Office of Management and Budged said, "The President has been very clear about the core principle that he will not support a budget that locks in sequestration, and he will not fix defense without fixing non-defense spending."

Accessing contingency funds "risks undermining a mechanism meant to fund incremental costs of overseas conflicts and fails to provide a stable, multi-year budget on which defense planning is based," it added.

Senior analyst for defense budgeting policy at the Heritage Foundation, Justin T. Johnson, said, "at a time of growing threats, Congress and the American people must determine whether it's appropriate to use the defense bill for domestic budgetary leverage.

Meanwhile, Obama is confident that the House will support his veto and hopes there will be enough GOP members to sway conservatives within the Republican caucus to follow his lead. Concerns for the restriction of detainees at Guantanamo Bay are another reason the president vetoed the bill. 

Obama has announced his goal of shutting down Guantanamo by the end of his presidency and the American Civil Liberties Union reported there are currently 114 prisoners still incarcerated there, 657 have been transferred out and nine have died. ACLU spokesman Josh Bell said, "the administration has been slowly transferring prisoners to other countries, but the process has been very slow."

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