News / Politics

US Senate passes colossal $770 billion military bill

Thursday, 16 December 2021 3:34 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 16 December 2021 3:34 AM ]

The US Senate has passed the country’s 2022 annual military spending bill, which authorizes a funding of $770 billion for military and national security, sending it to the US President Joe Biden's desk for signature.

The bill, known as National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), was passed on Wednesday after Senate Armed Services Committee added $25 billion to Biden’s already massive budget for the Pentagon.

The measure comes after the House of Representatives passed the bill by a 363-70 vote last week.

Now, the bill needs Biden’s signature to become law.

Biden’s military budget represents a bump from his predecessor Donald Trump’s last budget of $740 billion, which Democrats at the time criticized for being too generous.

Senate panel's decision to add $25 billion to Biden's massive Pentagon budget angers antiwar activists

The Senate Arms Services Committee has approved a $778 billion defense policy bill, adding nearly $25 billion to the Biden administration’s budget request.

Meanwhile, the 2020 Pentagon budget met with harsh criticism from progressive activists, who argue that the unwarranted spending increase for the military could instead be diverted to address more urgent domestic priorities at a time when the US is trying to rein in the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Just the proposed $25 billion increase to the Pentagon budget alone could end homelessness in the United States, making clear that senators are more interested in increasing the profits of military contractors than meeting the needs of everyday working people,” Carley Towne, co-director of the anti-war group CodePink, said in an interview in July.

“While millions of Americans are steeped in debt, living paycheck to paycheck, facing eviction, and struggling to pay medical bills amidst an ongoing health pandemic and recession,” Towne continued, adding, “The Senate Armed Services Committee decided to hurl even more taxpayer dollars at an increasingly privatized for-profit war industry.”

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