Defunding the reconciliation bill to fund the Pentagon

Speaking Security Newsletter | Advisory Note for Organizers and Candidates, n°127 | 26 October 2021

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Situation

Biden and Democratic leadership are defunding key provisions in the reconciliation bill (seemingly the ones most popular among the electorate). Here are a few of them. All costs are annualized over a decade per the 10-year scope of the reconciliation bill (though new reductions may cause some to expire before that).

• In-home care, from $40B to $25B per year

• Paid leave, from $22.5B to $10B per year

• Housing aid, from $30B to $17.5B per year

• Community college, from $11B to $0B per year

Not all publicly-funded initiatives are being defunded

Senate Appropriations Committee Democrats just endorsed virtually the same $24B increase in military spending over the president’s request last week as the House approved last month, and the Senate Armed Services Committee (which Joe Manchin sits on) advanced in late July. Here’s how the FY2022 Pentagon budget’s doing relative to the social spending provisions listed above:

*Daily Poster has a good analysis on the politics surrounding these cuts and where congressional progressives should go from here.

Thanks for your time,

Stephen (@stephensemler; stephen@securityreform.org)

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