Antiwar.com Original In a 23-3 vote on Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee signed off on a Republican-led amendment that grants an additional $25 billion to next year’s defense budget. The new proposal boosts spending levels to a total of $778 billion and proffers more in funding than what the Trump administration allocated in 2021. The funds will go directly to the Pentagon and its myriad projects. With the increase, more resources will go to pushing back on Beijing; funds will subsidize projects that counter China’s rising regional influence in the Indo-Pacific, where the DoD plans to accelerate its militarization of the South China Sea and Taiwan.