Tag: military spending

DeSantis, Haley, and Ramaswamy Among the 2024 GOP Presidential Hopefuls with Plans to Bolster the U.S. Navy

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USS Crommelin

Several 2024 Republican primary candidates laid out their plans to strengthen and increase the size of the U.S. Navy if president in statements to the Daily Caller News Foundation after the third GOP debate moderators pressed contenders on the topic.

Some Republican candidates have criticized President Joe Biden for allowing the Navy to atrophy in recent years as China’s military threat to the U.S. grows, pledging to strengthen the fleet should they become president in comments to the DCNF. The 2024 hopefuls explained how they would overcome weaknesses in the industrial base, recruiting and overall strategy to reverse the Navy’s decline.

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David Schweikert Introduces Amendment to Withdraw $6 Billion in Military Inflation-Subsidy Spending from the National Defense Authorization Act

Neil Jones

Arizona Representative David Schweikert (R-AZ-06) introduced an amendment Monday to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to remove $6 billion in additional inflation-adjustment spending.

“There is no question that reckless spending by Democrats and the Biden administration have contributed greatly to inflation that is burdening families in every corner of our country,” Schweikert said in a press release. “The last thing we should do is use taxpayer dollars to subsidize increased federal spending to cover rising inflation costs in our annual defense bill. I hope that Democrats accept my amendment and strike this wasteful and unnecessary spending.”

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Senate Preps Bill to Check China’s ‘Aggressive and Assertive Behavior’

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A Senate committee plans to review major legislation that proposes to curb China’s increasingly aggressive behavior attempting to expand its influence.

The Strategic Competition Act of 2021 would boost the ability for the U.S. to respond to China’s “aggressive and assertive foreign policy,” according to the text of the bill released by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez on Thursday. The 281-page bipartisan legislation is the first proposal from both Democrats and Republicans that lays out a strategy to defend against Chinese aggression.

“The United States must ensure that all Federal departments and agencies are organized to reflect the fact that strategic competition with the [People’s Republic of China] is the United States top foreign policy priority,” the legislation states.

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Blackburn Joins Other Senators in Urging Trump Administration to Reach Consensus with Congress on Two-Year Budget That Fully Funds the Military

Jason M. Reynolds

  U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) joined her colleagues in encouraging officials with President Donald Trump’s Administration to reach consensus with congressional leaders on a two-year budget deal to fully fund the military. Blackburn, along with Senators that include David Perdue (R-GA) and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-OK), sent the letter to Acting Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought, Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, according to a press release from Blackburn. The full letter is available online here. In the letter, the senators caution that another continuing resolution (CR) would devastate the United States military, delay the implementation of the President’s National Defense Strategy (NDS) and increase costs. Blackburn recently voted to fund the United States Military in Fiscal Year 2020, via the National Defense Authorization Act, The Tennessee Star reported Monday. The NDAA funds crucial projects that will directly impact military communities in Tennessee. According to the letter, “The Administration’s efforts last year to pass the Department of Defense (DOD) appropriations bill on time allowed our military for the first time in a decade to be properly funded without the use of a continuing resolution…

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Representative Scott DesJarlais Joins Large Majority in Support of $584 Billion Defense Bill

Christina Botteri
Tennessee Star

Wednesday, Representative Scott DesJarlais, M.D. (R-TN-04) voted to boost troops’ numbers, pay, training, and equipment in the 2017 Defense Appropriations bill that passed the House of Representatives by a wide margin. The $584 billion defense spending measure for this fiscal year is the first of a series of appropriations bills the House will likely pass before April 28 – the date the continuing spending resolution expires. The final vote tally was 371-48, with five Republicans and forty-three Democrats voting to oppose. The military funding bill reverses the Obama Administration’s proposed troop reductions and includes $1.6 billion over the previous president’s budget request. President Donald Trump and the new Republican Congress have made rebuilding the U.S. military a centerpiece of their agenda, along with a stronger foreign policy to deter aggression. Politico reported on some specific line items of the bill: It notably includes a $6.8 billion boost in procurement funding above the Obama administration’s final fiscal 2017 budget request, including more fighters, helicopters and ships. That includes $979 million for 12 Boeing-made F/A-18 Super Hornets, $750 million for six additional Navy and Marine Corps F-35 Joint Strike Fighters and $495 million for five extra Air Force F-35s. Appropriators also added nearly $3 billion for Navy…

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