The Pentagon building is the headquarters of the US Department of Defense, located in Arlington, Virginia and is the symbol of the US military.<\/p>\n
The United States Senate has approved a massive $632.8 billion worth of military spending, including $80.7 billion for the war in Afghanistan and $17.6 billion for nuclear weapons programs.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Senate Thursday passed the National Defense Authorization Act, 84-15. The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the bill last week on a strong bipartisan vote.<\/p>\n The spending measure for the 2014 fiscal year will now go to President Barack Obama for his signature.<\/p>\n The House and Senate Armed Services Committees had each passed their own version of the bill in June. During late November, Republicans and Democrats on the committees worked out a compromise bill that incorporated elements of their competing versions.<\/p>\n The bill would authorize everything from overall spending on wars and military salary to procurement of weapons systems and military-related foreign policy issues.<\/p>\n It also includes more than 30 provisions aimed at overhauling the Pentagon’s response to sex crimes, giving greater support to victims and reforming the military justice code to enable a tougher response to sexual assaults.<\/p>\n The Pentagon has estimated that 26,000 members of the military may have been sexually assaulted last year, though thousands were afraid to come forward for fear of inaction or retaliation.<\/p>\n The huge military budget comes as US lawmakers are considering a compromise five-year farm bill that would cut the food stamp program by $8 billion over the next 10 years.<\/p>\n The Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program provides food stamps for nearly 48 million Americans. <\/p>\n On Wednesday, the Senate gave final passage to a two-year budget plan that keeps the government funded at over $1 trillion a year through 2015 and avoids potential government shutdowns in January and again in October.<\/p>\n The budget plan gives sequester relief of $22 billion to the Pentagon in fiscal 2014 while allowing unemployment benefits for 1.3 million Americans to expire.<\/p>\n AHT\/HJ<\/p>\n<\/div>\n