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Monday, June 20th, 2022

Senate Armed Services panel goes big with new defense budget

Author:     Andrew Clevenger
Source:     Roll Call
Publication Date:     June 16, 2022 | 6:09pm
 Link: Senate Armed Services panel goes big with new defense budget
Stephan:   The United States spends more on the military-industrial complex than the next seven countries, and that includes both China and Russia, taking their budgets together. The question that should be asked, in my opinion, is: Doe this unique huge sum get us a military seven times better than theirs? One thing we know for sure, it is incredibly profitable for the corporations in the game. Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman should be noted particularly.
The Senate bill would authorize the purchase of two more Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. U.S. Navy / Getty

The Senate Armed Services Committee approved its version of the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act Thursday after adding more than $44 billion to the Biden administration’s request, sending the annual defense policy bill to the full Senate for consideration.

The bill would authorize $817.3 billion for the Defense Department. It also would authorize $29.7 billion for defense-related programs at other agencies and endorse another $10.6 billion in other congressional committees’ national security authorizations. The tally for the Pentagon is 5.7 percent more than the amount requested by President Joe Biden, and 5.4 percent more than Biden said he wanted for national security programs overall. 

The proposed increases, which congressional appropriators would have to back before they become law, would amount to a roughly 10 percent boost for the Defense Department and other national security programs over the fiscal 2022 enacted level, not counting supplemental aid for the Ukraine war effort.

The committee approved the legislation by a 23-3 vote but did not reveal how each senator […]

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