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From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

The House passes its version of this year's National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA,

as the Pentagon and Senator Tommy Tuberville tangle over abortion policy.

Welcome, I'm Kyle Peterson with the Wall Street Journal.

We are joined today by my colleagues, editorial board member Kate Batchelder O'Dell and columnist Kim Strassel.

On Friday, this year's NDAA passed the Republican Control House 219 votes to 210.

Four Democrats crossed the aisle to vote yes, and four Republicans voted no.

According to one news source, this is a $886 billion authorization,

with a 5.2% pay increase for service members, which now goes over to the Democratic Control Senate.

So Kate, can you just remind us again, what is the NDAA?

What is in this bill and how is this year's debate shaping up?

Yeah, Kyle. So the NDAA is the annual policy bill for defense,

where Congress kind of sets priorities and green lights kind of authorizes accounts.

So the budget deal that the House brokered with Biden locked in defense spending

that will later be appropriated in an appropriations bill.

And this year, defense takes a real cut after inflation over last year.

It's about 3% nominal growth over last year, but that's about half of inflation.

To your point about the pay raise, it is a large pay raise for service members.

That's needed in part to offset large inflation, but it will be helpful at the margins

...