“People are tired of the two wars. They’re tired of Afghanistan. They’re tired of Iraq.They’re tired of it.”

Time and again, the US House last week considered amendments to a Pentagon spending bill. And each time, unlikely coalitions of Republicans and Democrats voted to divert funds from Afghanistan projects, slash war spending — and nearly kill a controversial anti-terrorism program.

An examination of vote records reveals a pattern that exposes fissures in what Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter dubbed Capitol Hill’s “solid center” that since 9/11 “always” supported defense issues.

Time and again, members of this once-solid pro-defense voting bloc rejected spending hundreds of billions of dollars on new Afghanistan infrastructure projects and even on the country’s security forces, which White House and Pentagon officials say is the key to keeping out the Taliban and al-Qaida after US troops leave.

Time and again, once pro-defense members joined other Republicans and Democrats to form a deficit-slashing voting bloc that reflects the priorities of many Americans and an increasing number of their representatives.

And time and again, members like Reps. Loretta Sanchez, Jim Moran, Walter Jones, Mike Coffman and John Garamendi voted with the increasingly powerful deficit-hawk bloc.

Sanchez, D-Calif., is the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee’s (HASC’s) Tactical Air and Land Forces subcommittee. Moran, D-Va., is a senior member of the Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee (HAC-D) who hails from a state with a robust national security presence. All are considered pro-defense.

“All of this comes down to money,” said Christopher Preble, a national security analyst at the Cato Institute. “The question more [lawmakers] are asking is, ‘Just where are you going to find that money?’”

Six adopted amendments that diverted funds from Afghanistan projects or forces received 823 GOP votes and 897 Democratic votes, a stunning bipartisan statement about America’s involvement there beyond 2014 for a chamber known more recently for partisan brawls.