Lee, Pocan Revive Bill to Cut Military Budget by $100 Billion

U.S. Reps. Barbara Lee and Mark Pocan on Wednesday reintroduced their People Over Pentagon Act, which would slash $100 billion from the nation's military budget and reallocate that money to urgent needs, from investments in education and healthcare to combating the climate emergency.

Lee (D-Calif.) and Pocan (D-Wis.), who co-chair the Defense Spending Reduction Caucus, promoted the bill last year and unsuccessfully tried to attach it as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2023.

Lee—who on Tuesday confirmed her 2024 run for the seat that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) plans to vacate—encouraged her congressional colleagues "on both sides of the aisle to ask themselves what would truly provide more benefit to the people of this country: another outdated weapons system, or greater access to basic needs in our communities."

"Year after year, this country pours billions into our already-astronomical defense budget without stopping to question whether the additional funding is actually making us safer," the congresswoman said. "We know that a large portion of these taxpayer dollars are used to pad the pockets of the military-industrial complex, fund outdated technology, or are simply mismanaged."

"A large portion of these taxpayer dollars are used to pad the pockets of the military-industrial complex, fund outdated technology, or are simply mismanaged."

"Our national priorities are reflected in our spending," she stressed. "Cutting just $100 billion could do so much good: It could power every household in the U.S. with solar energy; hire 1 million elementary school teachers amid a worsening teacher shortage; provide free tuition for 2 out of 3 public college students; or cover medical care for 7 million veterans."

As the National Priorities Project (NPP) at the Institute for Policy Studies pointed out Wednesday, that money could also be used to send every U.S. household a $700 check to help offset the effects of inflation; hire 890,000 registered nurses to address shortages; or triple current enrollment in the early childhood program Head Start from 1 million to 3 million children and families.

"We shouldn't be adding billions upon billions of tax dollars to enrich Pentagon contractors at a time when real people are struggling," argued NPP program director Lindsay Koshgarian. "We're so used to hearing that we can't afford programs that meet real human needs for basics like housing, food, education, and childcare. The truth is that we can definitely afford it, if we stop throwing money at Pentagon contractors."

Pocan similarly took aim at those who stand to benefit most from the status quo that produced a $858 billion military budget for FY2023, declaring Wednesday that "more defense spending does not guarantee safety, but it does guarantee that the military-industrial complex will continue to get richer."

"We can no longer afford to put these corporate interests over the needs of the American people. It's time to invest in our communities and make meaningful change that reflects our nation's priorities," Pocan said.

The bill is also backed by advocacy groups such as Public Citizen—whose president, Robert Weissman, celebrated its revival.

"Pentagon spending is wildly out of control," and avoidable "spending waste—identified by the Pentagon itself!—vastly exceeds the entire budgets of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration combined," he noted.

Weissman also highlighted that in the latest NDAA, Congress approved a military budget that was tens of billions of dollars higher than what was requested, and that boost was "more than the annual cost to expand Medicare benefits to cover hearing, dental, and vision—a proposal abandoned on the grounds it cost too much."

The anti-war group CodePink also backs the bill and displayed its support with a Wednesday banner drop on Capitol Hill.

CodePink organizer Olivia DiNucci said that "cutting $100 billion of the Pentagon budget is a start in reallocating funds that go to military contractors to further destroy people and the planet instead of prioritizing the needs of the people to address true national security that includes healthcare, housing, clean water, quality food, living wages, and climate justice."