Republicans Vote to Starve Our Military
Most things in politics are predictable, even boring. You can usually guess how your member of Congress will vote without any serious trouble or surprise.
Then there’s last night (Wednesday), when the overwhelming majority of House Republicans voted to cut thousands of DoD programs and projects, including (I kid you not) funding for military pay, just because Donald Trump told them to do it (CBS). All five Virginia Republicans (Rob Wittman, Jen Kiggans, Bob Good, Ben Cline, and Morgan Griffith) were part of the group that literally chose party over country.
Don’t just take my word for it. One of the Republican “no” votes was Mike Rogers – the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee (NBC News, emphasis added).
GOP opponents were comprised of some unusual bedfellows. Some conservatives said they never vote for stopgap funding bills, known as continuing resolutions, or CRs, while Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., has warned that half a year is too long for military spending to remain stagnant.
That would be “devastating” to the Pentagon, the chairman told NBC News before the vote.
A full list of the horrors that would have come from this bill came via Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in a letter he wrote to Congress on the matter.
A long-term CR in FY 2025 would impede thousands of DoD programs and projects. Military recruiting would be damaged, just as we are post-COVID, returning to meeting our 2 goals. We would be forced to forego vital investments in our defense industrial base, including the submarine and ship building bases. We would lose time and money the Nation cannot risk on modernization of our nuclear triad, rapid fielding of Uncrewed Aerial Systems through the Replicator initiative, execution of hundreds of military construction projects, and deterrence initiatives in the Indo-Pacific and Europe. Additionally, because there would be no funds for legally required military and civilian pay raises during a CR, the Department would be forced to offset the cost of these well-deserved pay raises, and in fact all inflation impacts across the Department, by cutting into other programs and accounts at potentially damaging levels.
Among everything else, please note, “… there would be no funds for legally required military and civilian pay raises.”
Thankfully, House Democrats overwhelmingly opposed it, joining Rogers and about 13 broken clocks in defeating this dreck. Now Speaker Johnson can do what he should have done at the beginning: negotiate with the White House, the Senate, and the House Democrats to keep the government running while properly funding our military.
I’ve been tracking the Republican Party coming under influence from Moscow for a while now. However, I never expected so many House Republicans to follow the Pumpkin Plutocrat’s orders even when it put our military at risk. Yet that’s exactly what 199 Republicans did – including all five from Virginia. We cannot let any of them return to Washington.