Barack Obama signs sweeping US defence spending bill

“I have approved this annual defence authorisation legislation, as I have in previous years, because it authorises essential support for service members and their families, renews vital national security programs, and helps ensure that the United States will continue to have the strongest military in the world,” Mr Obama said in a statement early on Thursday after signing the measure.

Mr Obama, who is on holiday in Hawaii, said that he signed the measure despite reservations.

“In a time when all public servants recognise the need to eliminate wasteful or duplicative spending, various sections in the Act limit the Defense Department’s ability to direct scarce resources towards the highest priorities for our national security,” the president said.

“Even though I support the vast majority of the provisions contained in this Act … I do not agree with them all,” he said in his statement, adding that he did not have the constitutional authority to approve piecemeal items within the sprawling bill.

“I am empowered either to sign the bill, or reject it, as a whole,” he said.

The measure was hammered out by House and Senate conferees last month after each chamber voted to approve separate versions of the bill.

It includes $527.4 billion for the base Pentagon budget; $88.5 billion for overseas contingency operations including the war in Afghanistan; and $17.8 billion for national security programs in the Energy Department and Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.

The bill authorises $9.8 billion for missile defence, including funds for a Pentagon feasibility study on three possible missile defence sites on the US East Coast.

It also extends for one year the restriction on use of US funds to transfer Guantánamo inmates to other countries, a limitation critics say marks a setback for Mr Obama’s efforts to close the detention centre.

Mr Obama also signed a bill that boosts taxes on the wealthiest Americans, while preserving tax cuts for most American households.

The bill, which averts a looming fiscal cliff that had threatened to plunge the nation back into recession, also extends expiring jobless benefits, prevents cuts in Medicare reimbursements to doctors and delays for two months billions of dollars in across-the-board spending cuts in defense and domestic programs.

The Republican-run House approved the measure by a 257-167 vote late Tuesday, nearly 24 hours after the Democratic-led Senate passed it 89-8.