National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022
Floor Speech
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Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to offer amendment 40, as the designee of Congressman Mark Pocan, to reduce the Pentagon budget by 10 percent.
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Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to offer amendment 40, to reduce the Pentagon budget by 10 percent.
During a time when our country is withdrawing from foreign wars, when COVID-19 and its fallout is one of the greatest threats that we face, when record levels of unemployment, housing, and healthcare crises are among us, the United States should be reducing its military spending by at least 10 percent and prioritize the very needs of our communities here at home.
Today, we can cut the defense authorization by 10 percent, without any need to deny our servicemembers or their families any of the support that they need. And in doing so, we can free up to $77 billion to go towards fighting the COVID-19 pandemic and much more.
Mr. Speaker, I urge support of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Mr. Speaker, there was a point brought up that this could potentially threaten our readiness, and I would counter that it is not the readiness that cutting our defense budget threatens, it is the profit margins of defense contractors.
In fact, almost every major defense contractor here in the United States has had to pay fines or settlements for fraud or misconduct, all while getting about $1 trillion in public funding in defense contracts. I have seen this personally in my work on the Oversight and Reform Committee, where we have encountered contractor after contractor gouging the public and draining our resources.
In fact, the $77 billion is not even that hard to find. The Pentagon could save almost $58 billion by eliminating obsolete weapons, weapons like Cold War era bombers and missiles designed and built in the last century that are completely unsuitable for this one.
We could find another $18 billion by simply preventing the end-of- year spending sprees that lead to contract money being shoveled out the door every September. In fact, the Congressional Research Service has documented these spending spikes, and you could set your watch to it.
Each September, as offices at the Pentagon go on last minute spending sprees to justify next year's budget increases, we have increased our military spending year after year, senselessly and needlessly. And now, again, during a time when we have ended an almost two decade war, there is no reason for us to be increasing our military spending and our defense budget when we are not funding childcare, healthcare, housing priorities, and the climate crisis here at home.
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Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Mr. Speaker, the Pentagon is the only Federal department that has never passed an audit, despite this requirement being on the books for over 30 years. You know there are folks who are supportive of the current levels, the increase and skyrocketing levels of defense spending, saying, we are already meeting all of our needs with this.
I don't think a single American, I don't know a single member of my district that can say that our childcare needs are being met in this country, that our healthcare needs are being met, that our climate action that is necessary is being met. Our needs are not being met.
And despite all of this rhetoric about the deficit and all this fear about government spending, for some reason, our defense budget seems to be exempt from this conversation, and that we ask Americans and people in this country year after year to engage in the magical thinking that defense spending comes at no real cost. It does.
It comes at the cost of our security, because when we do not have and we are not able to go to school, to go to work and count on childcare for our children, it makes us less safe. When we are not able go to an emergency room and have our healthcare covered, we are less safe.
The degradation and erosion of our social systems here domestically is a threat as well. And that is happening because of our explosion in defense spending. The explosion in defense spending is coming at the cost of our domestic development here at home.
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Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Mr. Speaker, I think what we just experienced and have seen in our last two-decade war is exemplary of the types of waste that goes on, where what we see is lack of oversight and what we see is runaway military contractor spending with little oversight in what is going on, and then folks are caught surprised in the end that all of this investment seems to not have panned out and it has not been invested in the way that the American public was led to believe all along.
Now, not only are they tremendous costs that we had laid out earlier, but also this explosion in spending leaves our public health priorities underfunded, militarizes every problem in our society, and turns peaceful protesters into targets for weapons of war.
Mr. Speaker, I urge support for this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of amendment No. 41 which would cut $25.5 billion from the defense authorization bill.
There were some accusations just now saying that this is about progressive politics. But this bill allocates $25 billion more than President Biden even requested. So what we should be doing is sticking to the plan and giving the President of the United States what he determines is necessary for defense spending and not a dime more.
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Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce four amendments to protect the human rights of the Colombian and Saudi people.
Earlier this year in Colombia in the middle of the pandemic, President Duque proposed crushing new sales taxes on basic food items.
When the Colombian people demonstrated in protest, the government responded with brutality. Sixty-eight people were murdered, and over 1,100 protestors and bystanders were injured.
This is part of a pattern of human rights violations by President Duque. He is also planning to resume aerial fumigation, which most countries stopped using when devastating health impacts were discovered.
Our amendments would require the Department of State and Defense to issue a report on the State of human rights in Colombia. They would also limit the U.S. transfer of weapons to the police unit responsible for many of the demonstrators' murders. And finally, they would prohibit U.S. funds from being used to support aerial fumigation.
Similarly, in 2018 we stood horrified by the Saudi government's assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi for speaking up against the regime's human rights abuses.
Our amendment would prohibit funds from being used to provide weapons, military aid, or military training to the unit that carried out his assassination.
The U.S. has long supported abusive regimes in South America and the Middle East to serve our own interests, yet we seem somehow shocked and confused when refugees from these regions show up at our borders seeking asylum from the inhumane conditions that we helped create in their homelands.
It is now beyond time for us to rectify these wrongs, and I submit this amendment.
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