CD (Portland) — The US House of Representatives passed a mammoth US$858 billion military spending bill, putting the US budget for weapons and war-making higher than the next nine countries combined. Also attached to the bill was unprecedented US taxpayer funding for Taiwan’s military.

The US military budget represents around 40% of global military expenditures, greater than the amount spent by China, India, United Kingdom, Russia, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and South Korea put together.

House lawmakers voted 350-80 in favor of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with 45 Democrats and 35 Republicans voting against it.

The new NDAA authorizes an US$80 billion military spending increase over the 2022 bill, and US$118 billion more than when President Joe Biden took office in 2021.

The US$858 billion figure does not include additional spending on the US nuclear arsenal, the tens of billions contributed for Ukraine’s defense, or US veterans’ benefits.

Progressive lawmakers were prominent among those in the Democratic Party who voted against the bill.

“While working families are being crushed by inflation, we shouldn’t be spending US$45 billion MORE than the president requested,” tweeted Representative Mondaire Jones. “Certainly not on top of an already bloated US$800+ billion Pentagon budget full of lobbyist giveaways. I voted NO.”

Representative Jerry Nadler, another “no” vote, said that he could not support a bill whose “topline remains billions of dollars above the president’s request, adding to an already bloated Pentagon budget.”

Some nongovernmental groups also blasted the spend-happy provisions of the military bill.

Consumer advocacy group Public Citizen described it as an “absolute disgrace,” adding that “the minimum wage has been US$7.25 for over a decade. Why is there always money for the military-industrial complex, but a livable wage is somehow ‘too expensive’?”

Cole Harrison, executive director of Massachusetts Peace Action, declared in a statement that “Raytheon and its fellow merchant of death, Lockheed, are celebrating Christmas early.”

“Bring our war dollars home,” Harrison added. “We don’t need more weapons and more war. We need international respect and cooperation.”

Massachusetts Peace Action further noted that “the Pentagon recently failed its fifth consecutive annual audit, yet House members were quick to shower the unaccountable agency with taxpayers’ money.”

The Taiwan Enhanced Resilience Act

Significant among the bills that were attached to the NDAA was the Taiwan Enhanced Resilience Act (TERA), formerly known as the Taiwan Policy Act.

TERA authorizes US$2 billion in annual military aid to Taiwan for the next five years. According to the language written into the bill, this aid is aimed at “[preventing] the People’s Republic of China from decapitating, seizing control of, or otherwise neutralizing or rendering ineffective Taiwan’s civilian and defense leadership.”

While the United States has sold weapons systems to Taiwan regularly since it broke away from mainland China in the 1950s, this represents the very first time that US taxpayers are themselves paying the full bill for weapons being given to Taiwan.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez, a key backer of the Taiwan bill, explained, “China’s rapid military build-up, with new technologies and weapons that could be used against Taiwan, and its continued aggression and bullying across the Taiwan Strait, in the information space and in the economic domain, are upsetting the status quo and destabilizing the Indo-Pacific. The China challenge has become the most significant national security issues our nation has faced in a generation.”

On the other hand, China Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning responded: “US arms sales to China’s Taiwan region are a blatant violation of the One China Principle and the provisions of the three China-US joint communiques, especially the August 17 Communique of 1982. These arms sales undermine China’s sovereignty and security interests, harm peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, and send the wrong signal to the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces. China deplores and rejects them. We will act firmly to defend our own sovereignty and security interests.”

Originally published at Common Dreams. Republished by cc by-sa 3.0. Edits for style and content.

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