Coming full circle can be a dizzying experience, especially the second time around. That’s the sensation I got last week watching the House follow the same trajectory it took last year in processing the annual National Defense Authorization Act.

If last year’s process is a harbinger of what could happen again this year, we can expect a prolonged gestation period.

There was a time when Congress enacted its defense policy bills on time, well before the start of the new fiscal year. The House and Senate Armed Services committees carefully sifted through the administration’s budget requests for the Defense Department, held hearings, then completed debating, amending and reporting a committee bill with significant changes in funding levels and policy directions. The full House and Senate would follow the authorizing committees’ lead, making minimal changes. Any House-Senate differences would usually be quickly resolved.

That was then and now is now. Around the turn of this century we saw evolve a more partisan Congress with the prospect looming large every two years of either or both chambers flipping party control. In the case of the more stalwart committees like Armed Services, the culture within did not change that much. But the political culture outside its doors was changing........

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