On Thursday, news broke that Senate Republicans are seeking to add $50 billion in new Pentagon spending into the bipartisan infrastructure package. This is not entirely unexpected: Republicans are angry at what they see as a “flatline” budget and are insisting on parity between defense and non-defense appropriations. This is on top of Republicans’ successful effort to add $25 billion in new Pentagon spending into the Senate’s National Defense Authorization Bill. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden’s proposed budget already increases Pentagon spending to one of the highest levels since World War II, with the US spending more on the military than the next eleven countries combined.
While there are seemingly limitless funds for warfighting, everyday Americans continue to suffer due to our militarized funding priorities. Nowhere is this clearer than in this attempt to add Pentagon dollars to the infrastructure bill.
The proposed amendments include funding for various military purposes, including repairs and upgrades to naval shipyards, depots, test ranges, and national security labs, as well as the installation of 5G technology at DOD facilities. These provisions simply don’t belong in a bill meant to repair our roads and bridges, and build community resilience for climate change-related disasters.
While there are seemingly limitless funds for warfighting, everyday Americans continue to suffer due to our militarized funding priorities. Nowhere is this clearer than in this attempt to add Pentagon dollars to the infrastructure bill.
As women legislators from across the US highlighted in a letter to Congress last month, there are better ways to spend our tax dollars than on the Pentagon, and increasing the military budget will not help us “Build Back Better” from COVID-19. As opposed to social spending, there is very little congressional oversight of Pentagon spending, as evidenced by the fact that the Pentagon has never passed an audit. While teachers across the US are launching campaigns to pay for school supplies, the Pentagon continues to get away with massive waste, fraud, and mismanagement. Renters have received next to no support while military contractors receive accelerated COVID relief funds. Though the eviction moratorium has been extended, the point remains that tax dollars repeatedly make it into the hands of the military, whereas barriers are imposed on everyday Americans struggling to get by. Something has to give.
Dollar for dollar, it is clear that investments in education, healthcare, and clean energy create more jobs than the military — in some cases, by as many as double. For every dollar spent on destruction and war, we miss an opportunity to build and strengthen our communities.
If the Pentagon needs shipyard funding so desperately, perhaps they could start by cutting the F-35 aircraft, a weapon slated to cost $1.7 trillion over its lifetime, or the $100 billion Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), a weapon of mass destruction with missiles 20 times the size of those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As we remember the lives lost and impacted by those bombs during the 76th commemoration this weekend, we must ask ourselves whether it is moral or wise to continue to invest in bigger and more devastating weapons of mass destruction.
Even accounting for inflation, the $750 billion topline of the Biden administration’s proposed military budget is higher than President Ronald Reagan’s at the height of the Cold War. Last week, all Senate Armed Services Committee Democrats except Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) voted for a Republican amendment to increase the topline by $25 billion. For Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Mazie Hirono (D-HI), this is a 180 from their vote to cut the proposed Pentagon budget by 10% just last year. Americans would be forgiven for wondering whether weapons manufacturers’ massive donations to committee members may have made a difference.
As American troops finally leave Afghanistan, and our nation is no longer at war for the first time in 20 years, we must take this opportunity to save tax dollars spent on the military, not spend more. Adding more military funding to the infrastructure bill is inexcusable, and senators must reject a further Pentagon payday as the bill comes to a vote.
Mac Hamilton is an advocacy director at Women’s Actions for New Directions.
