Markey: “My Republican colleagues are quite comfortable enriching defense contractors, while demanding cuts for working and middle-class families.”
Washington (July 27, 2023) – Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) released the following statement today after voting no on a bloated, $886 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA):
“Tonight, the Senate voted to pad the Pentagon with a cushy, near trillion-dollar spending package to the tune of $886 billion—a ridiculous dollar figure that the military does not need. The American people have repeatedly heard from Republicans that we need to cut government spending – for education, for health care, for food assistance – and now they are enthusiastically throwing every nickel and dime they can find between the couch cushions to their defense contractor friends. It’s shameful.
“This bloated budget does not advance our national security. Real security means investing in our communities at a time when hospital closures are at record highs and the opioid epidemic is reaching every corner of our country. Real security means placing guardrails on Big Tech and emerging technologies so they can never be exploited by bad actors or fuel a youth mental health crisis. Real security means facing the climate crisis head-on by forging a clean energy future here at home, and weakening the grip of fossil-fueled despots and their regimes overseas.
“While I am grateful that the NDAA passed tonight includes my language to compel the Department of Defense to take seriously the threat of the overdose crisis among service members and military families, I cannot in good conscience support a package that will only inflate military spending at the expense of communities. I am disappointed my provisions to mitigate the threat of nuclear war by reducing the U.S. stockpile, keeping artificial intelligence away from the nuclear button, and preventing the President of the United States from being able to launch a nuclear first strike did not pass tonight.
“Year after year, Congress continues to expand military spending, without justification. The GOP wants a Grotesquely Overfunded Pentagon. My Republican colleagues are quite comfortable enriching defense contractors, while demanding cuts for working and middle-class families.”
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