Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted for the FY 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
The NDAA usually wins over the majority of the Democratic caucus. Last year, Democrats voted for it 109 to 85. However, this year, the Democratic leadership encouraged its members to vote against it. The full MA delegation rightfully voted against it. (Most of them typically do so anyway.)
There are a few reasons for that. First, the bill puts money into the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) slush fund in order to bypass sequestration level spending limits. House Republicans, as we know, want to eliminate the sequester on the military but leave it in place for social spending. The House Democratic leadership also opposed it because of its restrictions on closing Gitmo and a provision that bans DREAMers from serving in the military.
The bill would provide for the authorization of funding for the Department of Defense and other related agencies, programs, and operations for Fiscal Year 2016. It authorizes approximately $605.6 billion in discretionary budget authority in total. This includes $495.8 billion for the Department of Defense base budget and $17.6 billion for the defense-related activities of the Department of Energy.
The bill also includes $89.2 billion in discretionary budget authority for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), shifting $38 billion in funding from the President’s base defense request into the OCO war funding account. This gimmick goes around the sequester-level defense spending cap, while leaving the non-defense sequester-level cap in place……
The legislation maintains the current restriction on domestic transfers of Guantanamo detainees and prevents the use of funds for construction or modification of U.S. facilities to house Guantánamo detainees. The bill reverts to a more onerous certification standard for the transfer of Gitmo detainees and prohibits transfers to any country in which a previously transferred detainee was confirmed to have re-engaged in armed conflict. It also includes a further restriction on transferring detainees to a “combat zone,” which is defined broadly by an IRS statute.
House Republicans adopted an anti-immigrant amendment, stripping out language that was adopted on a bipartisan vote by the Armed Services Committee related to the consideration of allowing “DREAMers” to enlist and serve in the Armed Forces. This amendment, which only further damages our broken immigration system, is just another in a long line of Republican efforts to demagogue “DREAMers” – the hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children and know no other home than the U.S. Members are urged to VOTE NO.
The MA delegation unanimously voted against most of the heinous GOP amendments:
- Jackie Walorski (IN-02)’s amendment to extend the constraints on closing Gitmo for two years (beyond the FY 2016 period covered by the bill), bar transfers to Yemen, and bar use of the Defense secretary’s national security waiver authority to transfer prisoners to combat zones.
- Doug Lamborn (CO-05)’s amendment to limit funding for implementing the New START treaty, the nuclear arms reduction treaty between the US and Russia signed in 2010.
- Frank Lucas (OK-03)’s amendment to reverse and prohibit the further listing of the Lesser Prairie Chicken as a threatened or endangered species until 2021 and to de-list the American Burying Beetle as a threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act.
- Mo Brooks (AL-05)’s amendment to strip out the provision of the bill that would have allowed DREAMers to serve in the military.
And they voted unanimously in favor of two good Democratic amendments (which, unfortunately, were shot down by the House as a whole):
- Adam Smith (WA-09)’s amendment provide a framework for closing Gitmo by the end of 2017.
- Jerry Nadler (NY-10)’s amendment to strike the section of the bill that places limits on funding for the dismantlement of nuclear weapons.
However, on three amendments, the caucus split.
Bill Keating and Stephen Lynch voted for Mike McCaul (TX-10)’s amendment to amend 10 USC 2576a to include border security activities to the list of preferred applications the Department of Defense considers when transferring excess property to other federal agencies. 10 USC 2576a currently gives preference to counter-drug or counter-terrorism activities for small arms and ammunition (as well as other military property) transfer. The rest of the delegation rightfully voted against it.
Only Katherine Clark and Joe Kennedy voted for Jared Polis’s amendment to reduce the statutory requirement for the number of operational aircraft carriers the Navy must maintain from 11 to 10. The rest of the delegation voted against it.
Only Katherine Clark and Mike Capuano voted for Earl Blumenauer (OR-03)’s amendment to end the budget gimmickry of the Sea-Based Deterrence Fund (explained here). The rest of the delegation voted against it.
For once maybe the Democrats will have something to run on and with any luck lift the rest of the sequester when they are in the majority.
And you Democrats say you support our Troops with your phony hand shakes and you’re phony thanks for serving.
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is what our Troops need to do their jobs, and to do it right. When will the people in this State wake up and get rid of these phony’s who say they represent us, especially those who are serving and not give them the funds to do their jobs.
Read the post – the reasons for voting against this bill are clear.
…wake up and realize that phony handshakes and phony thanks for serving are no substitute for providing necessary care and treatment to those who have served once they are home.
We should all be thankful that the Defense Budget includes provisions to protect us from the insidious Prairie Chickens and Burying Beetles, instead of wasting money on healthcare for returning veterans or other such worthless entitlements.
It’s for a smarter, leaner, more efficient military that can do it’s job more effectively. The threats of today: Al Qaeda, ISIL, Boko Haram, Al Shabab, and Somali pirates are all asymmetrical threats that can only be effectively countered by boots on the ground and tailored special forces operations. Cold War-era blank corporate welfare checks to military contractors must become a thing of a past.
If a social program or transit system was as over budget, behind schedule, and obsolete on arrival as the Joint Strike Fighter or the Littoral Combat Ship the right would be up in arms. Instead, they are begging for even more. Glad to see our entire delegation including a seasoned veteran like Seth Moulton stand up and say stop. Even prouder of Clark and Capuano for taking it a step further and voting down the line against all these bad proposals.
I agree this program is ridiculous. The need for manned planes will drop as quickly as the use of drones escalates. Future cargo planes will have pilots, but they will be escorted by swarms of drones. It is antiquated thinking which costs so much money.
It will be hard for the air forces to give up the romanticized idea that all their pilots will be the next Eddie Rikenbacker but the sooner they do the better. This is an example of the excessive influence of the military industrial complex Eisenhower warned about.