Four years ago the Democratic Party said in its Platform: "We spend 13 times more on the military than we do on diplomacy. We spend five times more in Afghanistan each year than we do on global public health and preventing the next pandemic. We can maintain a strong defense and protect our safety and security for less.” And they ended the war in Afghanistan, but nonetheless, President Joe Biden has four times proposed INCREASES in military spending, and three times, thus far, Congress has added an INCREASE beyond what Biden proposed. The fourth proposal is now under consideration. Biden's 2025 budget proposal puts a whopping 69% of discretionary spending into militarism. We understand that bipartisanship is supposed to be a lovely thing, but what about bipartisan deceiving the public, enriching the weapons dealers, and feeding the death machine? Is that lovely? Click here to tell your Representative and Senators to publicly commit to voting No on military spending unless it is reduced, and to publicly urge their colleagues to do the same. WHAT'S NEEDED In 2022 the Congressional Progressive Caucus organized members to vote against any “rule” (a procedural vote on whether to have a vote) on the National Defense Authorization Act that included Senator Joe Manchin's dirty oil deal. The oil deal was removed. But no group of Congress Members has ever taken a stand like that to reduce the spending in that same bill. And while your Congress Member may tell you that opposing a rule vote is extreme, no group of Congress Members has ever taken a stand even to vote No on the bill itself unless the spending is reduced. There's a big difference between bragging about having voted No after the fact and committing to vote No (and urging others to do the same) before the vote. HOW THEY PRETEND TO ATTEMPT IT The People Over Pentagon Act (H.R.1134) has 22 Congress Members signed onto it. These are lawmakers who, to take them at their word, want to reduce military spending by $100 billion from what it is (or even from what it was some years back when this bill was first introduced). But, in contrast to simply organizing "No" votes on any NDAA that doesn't seriously reduce military spending, passing such a bill into law would require majorities, and possibly veto-proof majorities, in both houses. In the extremely unlikely event that that this bill were brought to a vote and passed by both houses, the level of spending in the NDAA could simply be increased by another $100 billion, and nothing would have changed. OUR DEMAND FOR SERIOUS ACTION Click here to send this email to your Representative and Senators (and feel free to add your own words): "As your constituent, I urge you to publicly commit to voting No on military spending unless it's reduced and to publicly urge your colleagues to do the same."
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