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Obama veto would wipe out $9 million for Valley airbase
VIENNA
The Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber is “disappointed” by President Barack Obama’s threat to veto a $612 billion defense policy bill that includes $9.4 million for a new indoor firing range for the Youngstown Air Reserve Station.
“We are disappointed that because of partisan politics an important enhancement to one of our most powerful economic engines might not come to fruition,” said Guy Coviello, the chamber’s vice president of government affairs and media.
The Senate vote Wednesday to approve the National Defense Authorization Act was 70-27. The House passed it last week, 269-151. But there are not enough Democratic votes to sustain a presidential veto, according to the Associated Press.
If Obama vetoes the bill, it would be only the fifth time a president has vetoed a defense authorization bill in the past half-century.
The president says he’ll veto the bill because even though it contains all the money he requested, it increases defense spending by padding a war-fighting account with an extra $38 billion, while Congress didn’t increase money for domestic agencies, too, as Obama wants.
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, Cleveland, D-Ohio, said that “while I support including funding for Youngstown in the NDAA, the president made it clear that he would object to funding the bulk of the nation’s defenses through budgetary tricks. If President Obama vetoes the National Defense Authorization Act, I hope my colleagues will find a responsible way to fund the Defense Department, along with the domestic agencies that keep us safe at home.”
Officials at the Youngstown Air Reserve Station did not comment on President Obama’s threatened veto.
However, 910th Airlift Wing Commander, Col. James Dignan, said: “We are excited to hear the Senate has passed the 2016 NDAA. We look forward to the act becoming law and receiving the funding to construct the new firing range at YARS ... When it is complete, this state-of-the-art facility will enhance the readiness of our airmen and also allow us to have our local law enforcement partners use the facility for their training as well.”