Note that Senators Cardin and Van Hollen voted for this obscene military budget. This budget is to fund the USA Empire, and of course this is an immoral document. Kagiso, Max
Just 11 Senators Voted for a 10 Percent Cut to Military Spending
The National Defense [sic] Authorization Act would
authorize $886 billion in military spending for the coming fiscal year.
July 28, 2023
Sen. Bernie Sanders watches
during a hearing at Dirksen Senate Office Building on March 29, 2023, in
Washington, D.C.MATT MCCLAIN / THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES
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The U.S. Senate passed its version of the National
Defense [sic] Authorization Act in an overwhelming bipartisan vote on Thursday
after rejecting Sen. Bernie
Sanders‘ push for a
10% cut to military spending.
Just 11 senators, including Sanders (I-Vt.), voted
against final passage of the sprawling NDAA, which would authorize a record
$886 billion in military spending for the coming fiscal year — including over
$844 billion for the Pentagon and roughly $32 billion for the Energy
Department’s nuclear weapons programs.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated earlier this month that U.S. nuclear forces will
cost the nation $756 billion over the next decade, or over $75 billion a year.
By comparison, the student
debt cancellation
plan that the Supreme Court struck down last month would have cost $30 billion annually over ten years, according to the Education
Department.
Sanders’ amendment, which was blocked in an 11-88 vote, would have cut the total amount of funding
authorized in the NDAA by $88.6 billion.
In a floor speech ahead of Thursday’s vote, Sanders lamented that
“year after year, with very little debate, we pour hundreds of billions of
dollars into the military-industrial complex” while neglecting healthcare,
education, housing, and the boiling planet.
“While defense [sic] contractors make huge profits,
while the Pentagon remains unordered — with massive waste and fraud — we now
spend more than the next 10 nations combined,” said Sanders. “Enough is enough.
It’s time to change our national priorities, and cutting military spending by
10% is a good way to begin.”
Sen. Ed
Markey (D-Mass.),
one of the few senators to both support Sanders’ amendment and vote against the
NDAA, said in a statement that “the Senate voted to pad the Pentagon with a
cushy, near trillion-dollar spending package to the tune of $886 billion — a
ridiculous dollar figure that the military does not need.”
“The American people have repeatedly heard from
Republicans that we need to cut government spending — for education, for
healthcare, for food assistance — and now they are enthusiastically throwing
every nickel and dime they can find between the couch cushions to their defense
[sic] contractor friends,” Markey added. “It’s shameful.”
The Senate and House will now begin the process of
reconciling the differences between their respective versions of the NDAA.
Earlier this month, the Republican-controlled House — with the support of four
Democrats — passed an NDAA loaded with right-wing amendments that
would roll back abortion access and gender-affirming care for service members.
But what the two chambers’ bills have in common is the
$886 billion topline, which is in step with President Joe Biden’s original request for fiscal year 2024 and a $28 billion increase
over the military spending level authorized for the current fiscal year.
As Politico reported, the Senate bill “includes nonbinding language that
warns the $886 billion national defense [sic] spending limit set by a recent debt
ceiling deal
isn’t sufficient and urges Biden to request emergency supplemental funding for
Ukraine, munitions production, and other necessities.” Critics have warned that such supplemental spending could become a
new Pentagon “slush fund.”
Following Thursday’s vote, Public
Citizen president
Robert Weissman wrote that “we’re told that we don’t have enough money
for daycare, universal pre-K, housing the homeless, providing hearing aids for
seniors, tackling the climate crisis.”
“We do not need to spend $886 billion on the
Pentagon,” he added. “Spending $886 billion on the Pentagon will not make us
safer. “Redirecting 10% of that total for healthcare, education, climate, and
other priorities — as Sen. Bernie Sanders proposed — would.”
This piece
was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced
in any form without permission or license from the source.
Jake Johnson is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
Follow him on Twitter: @johnsonjakep.
Donations can be sent to Max Obuszewski, Baltimore
Nonviolence Center, 431 Notre Dame Lane, Apt. 206, Baltimore, MD 21212.
Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at] comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the
subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to
gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and
everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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