House appropriators' draft plan for next year's defense budget includes money for a 2.3 percent pay raise for troops — the third military pay plan in as many budget bills this spring.

The move leaves open the possibility that service members could see their paychecks keep pace next year with the expected rise in average private-sector wages, over objections from Pentagon leaders who want a smaller boost so they can have more money for other programs.

Details of the nearly $579 billion bill will be marked up behind closed doors by the House Appropriations Committee's defense panel Wednesday, but the emerging draft already promises to extend a host of fights over next year's defense spending.

Along with going against the grain on the pay raise, panel members also rejected Defense Department plans for smaller housing allowance increases and included an plussed-up, $88.4 billion overseas contingency fund that already has drawn threats of a White House veto.

Total Defense Department spending would rise more than $24 billion under the plan, roughly $800 million above President Obama's original 2016 funding request.

The higher pay raise in particular will cost about $4 billion more over the next five years than the Pentagon wants to spend, and looms as a point of contention between Obama, the House and the Senate.

Already, the House version of the annual defense authorization bill — which authorizes programs that the appropriations bill then actually funds — supports a 2.3 percent pay raise in principle but omits any firm legislative language that would mandate the bigger boost.

The appropriations plan, however, includes funding for the bigger raise, placing larger paychecks for service members before other defense priorities.

Senators have approved only a 1.3 percent pay raise in the early version of their authorization bill, mirroring White House and Pentagon preferences.

For an E-4 with three years of service, the difference between the two potential pay raises would total about $268 a year. For an O-4 with 12 years, it would be about $838.

But outside advocates have argued that the difference is about more than just troops' cash in hand, noting that a 1.3 percent raise would mark the third consecutive year of increases that fall short of average private-sector wage growth, and widen the "pay gap" between military and civilian workers to around 5 percent by some estimates.

A 1.3 percent raise would follow in the wake of 1 percent raises in both 2014 and 2015, the lowest annual military pay increases in the all-volunteer era that began in 1973.

Pentagon leaders have noted that troops will still see a pay raise under either plan, and insist the smaller increase is needed to help keep modernization and training accounts solvent.

Similarly, military officials have argued that smaller increases in housing allowances also will help save taxpayer money, but House lawmakers have repeatedly rejected the plan. The Senate authorization draft supports the trims, setting up another fight.

But the biggest hurdle for the defense appropriations plan may be the oversized war fund, which Republicans want to use as a way to get around mandatory defense spending caps that they imposed several years ago, without providing relief for nondefense agencies.

Both Democrats and fiscal conservatives have mocked the plan as financially unsound, and promised a fight when the measure gets to the full chamber.

The Senate Appropriations Committee has not yet weighed in with its draft of the defense funding bill. If the two chambers can pass an appropriations bill that would will survive or avoid a presidential veto, the military pay raise would will go into effect Jan. 1.

Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.

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