AMAC Exclusive – By Shane Harris
The Senate passed the annual National Defense Authorization Act just before adjourning for the weekend last Thursday, sending the behemoth $847 billion bill to Joe Biden’s desk for signature. While large majorities of both parties in the House and the Senate voted in favor of the bill and trumpeted it as a “bipartisan victory,” it nonetheless largely failed to address major problems facing the military and contained wasteful spending for a number of far-left priorities.
Most of the news surrounding this year’s NDAA has centered on a provision rescinding the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, which has led to hundreds of thousands of men and women in uniform losing pay and benefits. Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have adamantly defended the mandate, despite both moral and health concerns from some military personnel about the vaccine. However, the disagreement is not expected to prevent Biden from signing the bill.
While the removal of the mandate may appear to be a big win for Republicans, Senate Democrats defeated an amendment offered by Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) which would have both reinstated military personnel who were discharged for refusing the vaccine and offered them back pay. First proposed by former President Trump nearly a year ago, many conservatives have been calling for such a provision to be included in the final bill in order to reverse what they viewed as an unconstitutional requirement that forced military members to choose between service to their country and their health freedom.
Other ostensible victories in the legislation also turn out to be rather lackluster upon examination. For example, Democrats and Republicans alike have touted the bill’s 4.6 percent pay raise for members of the military and civilians working for the Department of Defense. But that increase has already been more than offset by inflation, and is likely of little comfort to the 24 percent of military families who already say they are facing food insecurity and an effective pay cut.
One item that did get more than its fair share of funding and attention was Democrats’ climate agenda. The 2023 NDAA includes money to “investigate how to develop renewable and sustainable aviation fuel” and “building code amendments for DOD to consider use of integrated solar roofing,” as well as funding for “important climate research.” In fact, the bill mentions “climate” a total of 27 times.
Left out of the final bill, however, was reform legislation designed to speed up approvals for new energy projects, which West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin attempted to include as an amendment. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer promised Manchin back in July that the Senate would pass permitting reform “before the end of the fiscal year” in exchange for Manchin’s all-important vote on Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan. The end of the fiscal year has long since passed, and it now looks as if permitting reform will have to wait until next year – if it happens at all.
Also missing from the defense spending bill is any real commitment to addressing border security – perhaps the most serious and immediate national security threat currently facing the United States. While the NDAA pays lip service to the issue, calling for a number of “reports” and “strategies,” it includes no new allocations for physical border security measures and even calls for a $75 million cut in border security funding at the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.
These policies are not likely to help a military that is struggling to meet its recruiting numbers and has taken a hit in public trust. In total, the Army fell short of its enlistment goals by 25 percent this year, and every other branch has struggled to meet their quotas as well. Just 48 percent of Americans now say they have “a great deal” of trust in the military according to an annual survey conducted by the Reagan Institute. That figure sat at 70 percent as recently as 2018, and was 62 percent in 2020. Well over half of respondents reporting a decline in trust of the military cited “so-called ‘woke’ practices undermining military effectiveness” as a primary reason why.
It may indeed be the case that the NDAA which went to President Biden’s desk was the best possible compromise that conservatives could expect given that Democrats still control both chambers of Congress. But congressional Republicans should not confuse that with a “victory.” When the GOP takes control of the House – and therefore the drafting process for spending legislation like the NDAA – in January, they should prioritize ending the left’s use of military funding as yet another Trojan Horse to advance their non-military policy agenda.
Shane Harris is a writer and political consultant from Southwest Ohio. You can follow him on Twitter @Shane_Harris_.
