After a week long fight over matters ranging from congressionally mandated spending caps to immigration, house lawmakers on Friday passed annual military-spending bill of roughly $612 billion.

The National Defense Authorization Act was passed on 269-151 party-line vote. Four republican representatives from Arkansas also voted for the measure.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement, “With all the threats our troops face and the sacrifices they make, Democrats' opposition to this defense bill is in fact indefensible”.

Democrats were particularly upset over Republicans attempt to avoid the across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration that began in 2013. Republicans said that they could not accept any increases in military spending without equivalent increases for other programs.

But in a scheme intended to skirt the military-spending caps, the legislation includes roughly $89 billion in an Overseas Contingency Operations fund, which has been reserved for emergency military operations and exempt from sequestration.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said he did not mind the increases in military spending but wants that congress must take care of domestic things too.

Cummings said there are lot many things that they need to deal with. He said his concerns are more about issues like strong military, but he also believes that they need to have a strong country as well.

Democrats warned Republicans might not do the same end-run around spending caps when it comes to financing nondefense agencies later this year, opening the door to sharp cuts in domestic spending.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the defense bill would be a prelude to reductions that would devastate other vital pillars of our national strength, including homeland security, veterans, road building and other programs.