Senate votes down Sanders amendment to cut Pentagon spending
Speaking Security Newsletter | Note n°212 | 28 July 2023
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Situation
Last night, the Senate passed its version of the FY2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). It doesn’t contain the same controversial culture-war provisions as the House version (the most it does is cap salaries and order a review of the Pentagon’s diversity and inclusion programs — the House version eliminates them), but it does share the House iteration’s $886 billion authorization for the Pentagon for next fiscal year.
The Sanders amendment
Before the final vote, Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced an amendment to the bill that would’ve cut the Pentagon budget by 10%. Cuts would be applied evenly across all Pentagon accounts, except for those “relating to military personnel, the Defense Health Program, and assistance to Ukraine.” The amendment failed, 88–11.
This doesn’t reflect public opinion. Pretty much every public poll I’ve seen suggests that more Americans want to decrease military spending than increase it (this poll, for example). What explains this discrepancy?
One factor is money. Most Americans don’t benefit in any material sense from military spending. Our feelings toward the Pentagon budget are determined by our critical thinking skills and sense of morality. There’s no cash incentive to consider — what a bummer.
This isn’t the case in the Senate. The campaign cash from military contractors every senator accepts introduces parochial interests into the chamber’s public policy decisions. It’s certainly effective on some level. Consider the most recent case, for example: On average, senators who voted for the Sanders amendment — meaning they supported cutting the FY2024 Pentagon budget by 10% — received $82,585 in campaign/PAC contributions from military contractors during the 2022 election cycle. Those who voted against reducing military spending took an average of $237,873 — three times more than those who supported the cuts.
^Alt text for screen readers: Senators who voted against Pentagon cuts took three times more cash from military contractors. This chart has two orange columns showing the average amount of money two groups of senators received from military contractors. The first group opposed an amendment to cut 2024 Pentagon spending by 10%. Senators in this group took $237.9 thousand on average from military contractors. The second group supported reducing Pentagon spending, and their average was only $82.6 thousand. Figures refer to campaign and PAC contributions during the 2022 election cycle. Data comes from OpenSecrets. Read more at stephensemler.substack.com. Chart is by Stephen Semler (@stephensemler).
-Stephen (@stephensemler; stephen@securityreform.org)
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