The Pentagon doesn’t need $886bn. I oppose this bloated defense budget
As a nation, the time is long overdue for fundamental changes to our national priorities
Bernie Sanders
Mon 24 July 2023
The US Senate is now debating an $886bn defense authorization bill. Unless there are major changes to the bill, I intend to vote against it. Here’s why.
As everyone knows, our country faces enormous crises.
As a result of climate change our planet is experiencing unprecedented and rising temperatures. Along with the rest of the world, we need to make major investments to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and into more efficient and sustainable energy sources, or the life we leave our kids and future generations will become increasingly unhealthy and precarious.
Our health care system is broken. While the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry make hundreds of billions in profit, 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, our life expectancy is declining, and we have a massive shortage of doctors, nurses, mental health practitioners and dentists.
Our educational system is teetering. While we have one of the highest rates of childhood poverty of almost any major country, millions of parents cannot find affordable and quality childcare. The number of our young people who graduate from college is falling behind many other countries and 45 million Americans are struggling under the weight of student debt.
Our housing stock is totally inadequate. While gentrification is causing rents to soar in many parts of our country some 600,000 Americans are homeless, and 18 million are spending more than half of their limited incomes on housing.
These are some of the crises our country faces. And we’re not dealing with them.
And then there is defense spending. Well, that’s a whole other story. The proposed military budget that the Senate is now debating would increase defense spending by $28bn to over $886bn, an all-time record. The total is over $900bn if you include nuclear weapons spending through the Department of Energy.
I will oppose this bloated defense budget and efforts to further increase military spending through a defense supplemental for three main reasons.
