Senate Democrats block $1.15 trillion defense authorization bill

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(From the article): “Senate Democrats on Tuesday defeated a motion to proceed to the $1.15 trillion annual defense authorization bill, legislation that usually enjoys strong bipartisan support but this year has become snarled in a partisan fight over defense spending levels.

The motion to advance the annual defense bill failed by a vote of 50 to 46. It needed 60 votes to succeed. Senators voted strictly along party lines except for Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) who changed his vote from “yes” to “no” to allow him to bring the motion back to the floor at a later time. Four senators missed the vote: Sens. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Jim Justice (R-W.Va.), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.).

The legislation advanced out of the Senate Armed Services Committee on June 11 with a bipartisan 18-9 vote, but the partisan battle lines have hardened since then as Republican and Democratic negotiators have failed to reach agreement on top-line defense and non-defense spending levels.

Democrats also cited the resumption of the military conflict with Iran and Trump’s failure to ask Congress to authorize the war, which started on Feb. 28, as a big reason behind their opposition to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). “Now the White House has formally notified Congress that hostilities have resumed, that American strikes are under way again and our forces remain positioned for more. Yet Republicans want the Senate to take up the NDAA, the defense bill, as though none of this is happening,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) said on the floor before the vote.

The legislation would provide $1.1 trillion to the Department of Defense, $41 billion to the Department of Energy to manage the nation’s nuclear arsenal and $11 billion to other defense-related activities. The legislation includes a 3.6 percent pay raise for troops and investments in education, housing health care and childcare for military families.

But the lack of a bipartisan deal on increasing defense and non-defense spending levels in tandem has caused a deadlock in the Senate that has ensnared the regular appropriations bills and now the defense authorization bill, as well.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) called the Democratic vote to block the defense bill from coming up for debate “unprecedented.” “It’s unprecedented not to pass the motion to proceed on the NDAA and it reflects a decision and a mindset on the part of Sen. Schumer not to cooperate at all because so much of this has been done on a bipartisan basis,” he said. “It really is a new low.”

Schumer on Monday criticized Republicans in a “Dear Colleague” letter for pushing “lopsided” bills that increased defense spending substantially while leaving behind non-defense programs. “There is nothing normal about putting forward a lopsided proposal that shuts down bipartisan input and jams through one-sided bills that shortchange families, prolong a war, and shield corruption,” he wrote.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Tuesday slammed the defense authorization bill as a bill to support the military conflict with Iran, which most Americans oppose. “It’s a war-funding authorization bill. This is an authorization for the Iran war, a war that nobody in this country wants,” he said.

Some Democrats were wavering on whether to vote to begin debate on the bill, such as Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee. “I’m considering it,” Reed said before the vote.”

$1.15 trillion is insane.

This traitorous regime fired tens of thousands of hard working public sector employees under the farce of “efficiency and cutting wasteful spending” so they could line their own pockets and double the already bloated and out of control defense spending.

How did it fail 50-46 with 4 Senators absent and Graham no longer with us?

Edit:Graham was not listed as one of the four absent. Those were McConnell, Padilla, Justice, and Fetterloser.

That’s a lot of healthcare

Now stick to it and force negotiations.

Good.

Fantastic.

That’s a truly obscene amount of money. It’s encouraging the Democrats actually did something by killing this appalling bill.

Actually, *five* senators missed the vote. Right?

Hey can we have some fucking grocery relief now? Or healthcare?

Rich people want your tax dollars to pay for protecting their wealth. Nothing more.

But public education, homelessness, health welfare… no money for those. Right…

Maybe the pentagon should pass an audit before he just toss even more money into their black hole?  Amazing how they whine about the debt but there is always money for the pentagon so we can buy aircraft carriers that catch on fire and don’t work properly

There’s nothing conservative about MAGA. They want to spend more than democrats and still claim they are the party of small government

The willingness for MAGA voters to instantly change their beliefs is truly a sign of some form of mental illness. No wars and reducing the debt are talking points they scream about every election, yet here we are doing the opposite.

I’ve witnessed first hand a MAGA relative changing their views. All it took was playing them a video of Trump saying the opposite of what they claimed to believe, and suddenly they were repeating it. This MAGA insanity has actually prompted me to question consciousness. Are these people even real the same way I am or are they more like instinctual animals acting without coherent thought. Insane I know, but I cannot fathom how these people can hold and then instantly change the beliefs they do.

But how will Americans defens themselves from made up conflicts that they have started?

Good. This was insane. We already spend more than the next 9 countries combined. This would’ve put our spending at like the next 18 combined. Which China is at #2 in defense spending at $336 billion. How anyone would’ve been OK with this blows my mind.

Edit: Misread the title and was going on the original proposed $1.5 trillion spending budget. So it would be like the next ~13 countries combined…which is still crazy. We spend an astronomical amount on defense when there’s more important things it could be used for, but instead we’re actually making *cuts* to because the politicians and their rich buddies don’t benefit from it.

we must stop the military funding, to Israel and to ourselves. It is the only way to end the endless aggression, violence and genocide that we support all around the world. we are the bad guys. we are the terrorists.

Have musk pay for it.

>investments in education, housing health care and childcare for military families.

Just reminder this is one of the reasons they don’t want to fix these problems for the average citizen. Have to have a way to extort the poor into fighting the rich’s wars.

Just proposing +$1 Trillion solely for defense should be an impeachable offense in these United States

But we can’t afford school lunches, public health inspections and tracking, or student loan forgiveness.

Well done. 45-47 shouldn’t start wars he can’t finish.