There’s a
bill in Congress, as there always is,
called The People Over Pentagon Act, which
would reduce military spending by $100
billion. Who the heck isn’t for that?!
Everybody who’s got any sense has endorsed
the thing, as they always do. Who
wouldn’t? I don’t blame anybody in the
least. Except the bill’s sponsors in
Congress. I blame them. And not just
because they want to cut $100 billion from
whatever the military budget may be, while
that budget has risen by more than $100
billion since they started introducing
this sort of bill. And not just because
they’ve dumped $100 billion into free
weapons for Ukraine above and beyond the
budget that they supposedly want to reduce
by $100 billion.
To
understand
why this thing is a scam, it helps
to look at an
account
of how wonderfully awesome the
Progressive Caucus is. It reads in
part:
“In
December
2022, when then-House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) agreed to
support Manchin’s permitting deal
in the military budget—or National
Defense Authorization Act—
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
polled
Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC)
members before announcing that the
caucus opposed the measure and
would fight its inclusion in any
legislation. More significantly,
Jayapal told Pelosi that CPC
members would vote against any
“rule” on the National Defense
Authorization Act that included
it. Rules for debate on the House
floor are generally adopted on
party-line votes because they
often add seemingly extraneous
items supported by members of the
majority party, such as Manchin’s
permitting deal. The idea is to
provide a quick path for passage
of the final legislation—in this
case, the National Defense
Authorization Act. While
Republicans would likely have
lined up to pass the
record-breaking military budget,
they would not vote for the rule
putting it on the floor, since
those are virtually always taken
by a party-line vote. This gave
the CPC the leverage it needed to
block Manchin’s permitting deal.”
This is a
cheerleader for the Progressive Caucus
effectively telling us something that I’ve
been telling anyone who would listen since
somewhere far back in the mists of time,
namely that there is a way for a group of
Democrats in the House of Representatives
to accomplish something if they actually
want to. It’s not unlike the way a group
of Republicans withheld their votes for
the current Speaker of the House until
they got some stuff they wanted. When a
group of Democrats withheld their votes,
blocking a military spending bill, they
were able to get something they wanted,
the removal of the dirty oil deal.
Terrific. Good for them. Awesome indeed.
But they
didn’t so much as try to get — as they
have NEVER ever once tried to get —
something else that they supposedly want,
namely reduced military spending. And, of
course, they often don’t try to get
anything at all. So, the excuse that
demanding two things would just be
unreasonable doesn’t get you very far.
They typically demand zero things. This
was a freak occasion when they were
motivated to demand anything at all. And
they got what they demanded. Did anyone
learn anything from that?
You see,
as I’ve been screaming myself blue in the
face trying to communicate for decades, if
you have a group of people in one house of
Congress claiming to be against something,
they can block it. They don’t need
permission from the other chamber (the
Senate), or the White House, or MSNBC.
They can simply withhold their votes —
either on partisan rule votes or on
full-house votes in which the other party
may join them for its own insane reasons.
Or they
can go on letting record military spending
bills come to the floor and pass, voting
against them in small enough numbers to
not endanger passage while still allowing
them to show their constituents their
noble “No” votes. If they take this route,
they can also introduce bills proposing to
reduce the military spending they’re
allowing to pass. And organizations can
get funding for tracking how a few more
Congress Critters cosponsor the charade
than did two years ago. It’s win-win.
Except that it’s never brought to a vote,
never passes the House, wouldn’t matter
anyway without passing the Senate, and
would be vetoed if it miraculously passed
both houses.
I think
this phony approach gets a boost from the
“I’m for something, not against something”
crowd. It’s pleasant to endorse a bill
that says it will reduce military
spending, whereas withholding votes from a
procedural vote nobody’s heard of sounds
rather weird and unpleasant, even contrary
to good Party spirit and loyalty. But
would you rather actually reduce military
spending or go on “reducing military
spending” as it soars upward forever?
A few
years ago, a couple of members of
Congress, the same ones sponsoring this
bill, claimed they were going to create a
“Defense Spending Reduction Caucus.” That
sounds like something that might do just
what’s needed. Except it was never
created, has no website, has no staff, has
no identity, has never organized anybody
to do anything, and seems simply poised to
burst onto the scene with a strongly
worded letter in support of the People
Over Pentagon Act as soon as there’s a
Republican in the White House.
In fact,
each time a military spending bill rolls
through Congress, here’s what happens:
1) Biden
proposes a massive increase
2) Zero
Democrats object or encourage No votes or
vote-withholding threats or even state
that they will personally vote No
3)
Congress, with Republicans in the lead,
proposes a massive increase over and above
Biden’s massive increase
4)
“Progressive” Democrats whimper about the
Republican increase, suggesting through
omission that it was the only increase
5) But,
zero Democrats object or encourage No
votes or vote-withholding threats or even
state that they will personally vote No
(the one exception I know of was in the
Senate and not exactly a Democrat: Bernie
Sanders once said he would vote No)
6) The
bill passes both houses and is signed into
law
7)
“Progressive”
Democrats tell people they voted
No, and moreover they’ve
cosponsored the People Over the
Pentagon Act. So they’re
diligently hard at work trying
every possible angle to do what
you elected them to do!