The House and Senate have agreed to increase the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) by $45 billion more than President Biden requested, POLITICO reported on Wednesday.
The $45 billion increase was agreed on by the House and Senate Armed Service committees, but other details of the NDAA are still being finalized. The increase the two panels agreed on brings the bill to $847 billion.
Including programs outside of the jurisdiction of House and Senate Armed Service committees, the NDAA will reach $858 billion.
Once finalized, it will be the second year in a row that Congress significantly increases President Biden’s requested budget. Last year, the president asked for $753 billion but was granted an NDAA worth about $778 billion.
The POLITICO report said that the chairs of the Senate and House Armed Services committees have largely agreed on the bill and have handed it off to congressional leadership.
Congress is looking to get the NDAA on the House floor for a vote as early as next week. Once approved by the House it will go to the Senate and then would head to President Biden’s desk for his signature.
Over the past few months, lawmakers have been trying to tack on amendments to the spending bill that would give Taiwan unprecedented military aid, but the contents and amendments included in the NDAA aren’t yet clear.
One plan reported by The Washington Post would give Taiwan $3 billion annually for at least five years. If the Taiwan aid isn’t included in the NDAA, the White House could ask Congress to authorize the Taiwan aid as emergency funds, which is what has been done for Ukraine.
What do the American people get??? What? Do we feel safer? NO. Do we feel richer? NO. BYE-DONE is a slave to the MIC.
As are most of our politicians.
$3 BILLION ANNUALLY FOR TAIWAN?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!
ARE WE GOING TO GO TO WAR WITH CHINA?
I think the hope is to keep them from taking Taiwan back – a project that has some likelihood of causing a war.
That makes sense Michael…
I interpreted it as yes it maximizes the odds of us fighting a war with China as soon as possible.
China is growing stronger by the month. Pelosi failed to spark a war with her visit. So we keep investing in and publicizing actions that have some likelihood of causing a war.
It took 8 years from 2014 to get Russia to militarily fight Ukraine. Zelenski’s request for nukes seemed to be what finally worked.
When before 2022, did Zelenskyy ask for nukes?
As for the potential for the Chines to take back Taiwan, the idea as I understand it is to indicate to/show the Chinese that the US will indeed support the Taiwanese in any fight with Xi. That the US supposedly meant was apparently not sufficiently clear before.
I am of the opinion that upscaling arms to the Taiwanese could push towards a war sooner rather than later as, might otherwise be the result. I think so as the Chinese have stated quite clearly that if everything else fails they will when the last peaceful options have failed, take back Taiwan by force.
He did not before 2022. He did… well right before the SMO started. Early 2022.
And we agree that military aid to Taiwan moves us closer to a China-US war. To me, this is a large part of why the aid is happening. This way when it happens the US can say “Why is everyone attacking us???”
This increases the odds of nuclear weapons landing close to my US home.
So this was not why the SMO started – it might have been why the SMO was not called off at the very last moment, but then the building up to the SMO is likely why Zelenskyy asked for nukes.
I was not aware that the US say that everyone is attacking them, I’ve heard the Russians complain that no one is supporting them not even the CSTO.
I think that you should not worry overly much about the usage of nukes – these weapons are not of much value in an offensive capacity – as in taking over Taiwan or the US defending Taiwan against the Chinese – the moment you should worry is if/when the US develops something like the hypersonic missiles before the ‘competition’ that is when they have a significant first strike advantage while having a defensive advantage in anti ballistic technology.
Still not even in that scenario would it ‘pay off’ as in some nukes would get through so no sane US president would do it – and the MIC would lose massively on the peace dividend that would have to be the result of ridding the US of its last super power opponent.
Are there any emergency funds for the AMERICAN PEOPLE?????? NO! HELL NO!
I AM ASHAMED TO BE AN AMERICAN.
Stop that! Help organize a war resistor’s league and real democracy.
HOW, Garrett? Who’s going to listen to the likes of you, Donna and myself?
The sad fact is that the majority of the complacent Amerikkkan people are undoubtedly just fine and dandy with this, with their erroneous beliefs that such spending will make Amerikkka “safer”, rather than the fact that it will more likely encourage our regime to initiate war.
Biden is a traitor to his country, he worships a Foreign Beast MONEY!
That is going to be a surprise to a good lot of Americans, who (I believe) think that the US is pretty much as founded on the capitalist ideals.
Thanks for making me laugh Michael. 🙂
Cracked me up too Donna! 😁
PEACE OUT.
Donna V points out MIC owns Biden’s whatever. So true. Thinking of origin of Monopoly game — devised by anti-monopoly/progressive re dramatic disparity of rich vs “us” (!!) Lizzy Maggie in 1903, wouldn’t it be great if someone made an “MIC Board Game” — laying out who wins/loses/gets kickbacks/goes to jail/does not go to jail/passes go & collects $$$/builds builds builds enterprises that drain the nation’s coffers….
Let’s hope the rail union sets us all an example.
well we could leave out the jail part because none of the players ever goes to jail.
but the pieces that are moved around the board could be a tank, a bomb, a jet fighter, a general and an oil derrick.
The MIC owns the whatevers of the members of the Armed Service committees too. That’s why they fill those positions.
Agnieszka, you are on to something. You should contact Parker Bros. with your idea for a new board game that would blow Monopoly out of the water. I’d purchase it right away.
The amount of these monies are obscene! MIC owns Biden’s a–. My biggest concern is whether or not Biden is looking for a way to spend it as in a WAR.
$45 Billion more than he asked for??? Kiss my lily white a–!
It doesn’t matter who we have in office, Democrats or Republicans, they worship the same beast: THE WAR MACHINE!
And actual “defense” spending is much higher. Not included in these NDAA figures are the costs of the “intelligence” agencies outside of the DoD, the production of nuclear weapons (Dept of Energy), the Dept of Veterans’ Affairs, much foreign military aid, various “emergency” costs (like the war in the Ukraine, and, before it, the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc), and so on. The US is now spending well over a trillion dollars a year on “defense.”
The last breaths of the U.S. of A. This country has gone down the road taken by other countries in their final death spiral. Wars. Military adventures. Many military outposts. Financialization over economic policy and manufacture of goods. Deep debt. It is not just Biden. Congress approved the largess expansion for the MIC.
$2,367,123,288 per day?
$9,8630,137 per hour?
$1,643,836 per minute?
“Congress is looking to get the NDAA on the House floor for a vote as early as next week. Once approved by the House it will go to the Senate and then would head to President Biden’s desk for his signature.”
Which Biden will immediately veto and tell congress if they have an extra $45 billion they want to spend over what he is asking for, they can put it into domestic programs that help improve people’s lives instead of ending them. Then I woke up.
Nice dream while it lasted, Wars 😉
Oh boy! More pronoun and CRT training!
That military budget is so obscene. I am going to press my Congressman Ben Cline (R-VA) and my Senators Kaine and Warner (both D-VA) to vote NO. I call their offices almost every day; this will be my theme for the foreseeable. If anyone here would also call some legislators, please tweet me when you do! @KathleenTemple5 Thanks!
I appreciate your efforts even if they come to nothing. These pieces of crap that keep getting elected are not listening. They only vote the way their power brokers tell them.They care not for their citizens only money
Agree, Wendell.
You can email your heart out and what you get in return is a form letter.
They don’t listen to, nor care about, the likes of us. They’re only out for their own goddamned selves.
Good luck with kaine and warner! They are so far into the deep state that the sun don’t shine.
Follow along or search on Sundance’s site (warning he is a rabid trump supporter, other than that, he does his research)!:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/
Guaranteeing 7 paid sick days to rail workers would only cost the industry $321 million a year. That’s $325,000,000 vs. $45,000,000,000.
Jeez, it is hard if not impossible to find good news these days but I just noticed another article above that warmonger Elaine Lucia is out-not sure what happened there but that at least one small piece in this sea of war idiocy.
Unfortunately, what replaced her is just as bad.
Hubris, no other way to describe it. Nemesis cannot ve too far away.
The folks in D.C. should put this in their pipe and smoke it: U.S. News and World Report : https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-11-30/russian-chinese-bombers-fly-joint-patrols-over-pacific
The Russian MOD is disarming NATO (Ukraine was disarmed in March), tank by tank, artillery by artillery, air defense by air defense. What they loose in the Ukraine, they loose for the final NATO global war.
Russia is inflicting a 10:1 kill ratio. According to Ursula von der Leyen over 100,000 Ukrainian officers dead. Probably twice that seriously injured and an estimated 1300 NATO polish officers (mercenaries) dead.
NATO overall has accumulated the following equipment losses;
334 Aircraft, 177 helicopters, 2592 UAV’s, 391 Anti Aircraft systems, 6930 tanks inc. APC’s, 905 multiple rocket launchers, 3642 rocket launchers and 7431 military automotive equipment.