Understanding the NDAA Issue

Jul 21

Congressional Gridlock & MAGA Schemes

Democrats in Congress are now actively resisting most of the MAGA legislative agenda and, to some degree, MAGA appointments. Democratic opposition has been most effective in the Senate where Democrats are using the filibuster to block MAGA legislation.

The MAGA regime has three tactics to circumvent the Democrat's filibuster that they are trying to use:

End or amend the filibuster rule itself. They can do this at any time – if they have 50 Republicans to do so. But a few GOP senators are worried that MAGA is no longer eternally invincible and that if they end the filibuster today some future Democratic majority might raise the minimum wage, restore taxes on the wealthy to what they used to be, and re-impose health/environment/safety regulations on businesses. So at the moment the MAGA regime does not have the votes to end the filibuster. But that could change at any time.
Enact a Third Reconciliation Bill (Recon3). They are currently trying to do this in the House against united Democratic opposition and also a handful of Republican extremists calling themselves the "Deficit hawks" who are refusing to go along because the proposed Recon3 bill does not cut enough domestic spending. In other words, it's not bad enough for them. Whether the Trump/Vance administration and Speaker Johnson will be able to push Recon3 through the House is unclear. If they do, it will then be fought in the Senate.
Attach their priority legislation to a "Must Pass" bill like the NDAA. At the moment, this seems to be the tactic they are most focused on. As explained below, right now the fight is centered in the Senate where a MAGA NDAA has been drafted by committee and is now headed to the floor for battle.

The Annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)

The NDAA sets and controls defense-related funding and policies. This is more than just Pentagon military spending. It also includes money and policies for new nuclear weapons, defense-related construction, a portion of CIA/FBI/etc intelligence activities, some military aid to other nations such as Israel, and so on. For the past two decades the defense spending and policies controlled by the NDAA have generally run around 52% of all federal discretionary spending – leaving 48% for all the rest of government functions such as housing, health, science, justice, education, environment, and so forth.

There is no law or regulation that requires an NDAA to be enacted every year. But since this single NDAA bill dominates more than half of the entire federal government, it is hugely important to the Military-Industrial Complex (who are big dark money donors to both parties) and also to communities relying on defense-related jobs. So members of Congress really want to pass it – which is why it is considered a "Must Pass" bill.

But if an NDAA is blocked by a filibuster and fails to pass by the end of the year, nothing really changes. The planes continue to fly, the ships sail, and service members get paid. A few defense contracts with sunset provisions might stop paying out (to the dismay of those contractors) and no new contracts with new flows of profit-generating revenue streams will commence and old ones won't be increased.

Because powerful special interests and incumbents of both parties want the NDAA to pass no matter how vile it is, Republicans believe they can get enough Democratic votes in the Senate to enact it. And year after year they have done so. The last NDAA passed by a vote 77-20 with more than 20 Democrats voting "Aye." To their credit, our two Senators – Padilla and Schiff – voted "Nay."

This Year's NDAA is Much WORSE Than Last Year's.

The 500+ page NDAA bills always contain many provisions that progressives fiercely oppose (and fail to block). But this year's NDAA is the first one that is entirely the product of the Trump/Vance MAGA regime and it contains three (or maybe four) provisions that are beyond all precedent and that we must oppose in every way that we can:

Huge increase in defense spending. The current NDAA bills (S.4784 & H.R.8800) set a 28% overall increase in defense spending. This money-grab raises the defense share of discretionary spending to 63% (dropping everything else to 37%). This is an enormous and unprecedented shift. And it inevitably means draconian cuts to domestic health, education, housing, environment, justice, and other programs – which, of course, is a core element of the MAGA political agenda.
Iran War Policy. A portion of the increases to the Pentagon budget mandated by these NDAA bills go towards funding the Iran War. And the Recon3 bill that the MAGA regime is pushing contains an additional $60-80 billion specifically dedicated to prosecuting a war that has never been authorized by Congress. Democrats tried to add provisions requiring the president to follow the Constitution and the War Powers Act, but Republicans blocked all of them. In essence then, the absence of any limitations permits Trump to wage and expand his personal and unconstitutional war at his will and whim.
Israel-U.S. military integration and circumvention of congressional oversight. Military aid and cooperation with foreign nations normally requires congressional oversight and authorization. The current House NDAA bill contains policy provisions that appoint a Pentagon "Executive Agent" with broad authority to approve and coordinate "integration" of U.S. and Israeli defense matters in many areas. In the view of many observers, this would limit or in practice entirely eliminate the ability of Congress to approve, oversee, or set political limits on U.S-Israel military cooperation. (See further discussion below).
SAVE Act. The current House or Senate NDAA bills do NOT contain any portion of the SAVE Act which is a highly partisan MAGA regime scheme to suppress the votes of Democratic-leaning demographic groups through targeted voter-ID requirements, restrictions on mail-in voting, and other stratagems to favor the Republican Party. Democrats blocked efforts to jam the SAVE Act into the NDAA. However, MAGA members of the House are now trying to put it back in the NDAA. If they succeed, that will become a fourth red-line issue we have to demand that Democrats filibuster on.

More on the Integration of Israeli & U.S. Militaries

The American public and many members of Congress are becoming sharply critical of Israel's actions and policies under the Netanyahu government. Increasingly, there are political efforts in the nation at large and in Congress to limit the size and scope of U.S. military/intelligence cooperation with Israel, and place policy restrictions and limits on what US-supplied or US-funded items can be used for.

In response to that growing resistance to previous "blank-check" policies regarding Israel, and at the request of Israeli leader Netanyahu and the American/Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Republicans tried to insert Section 622 into the Intelligence Authorization Act to "share" (merge) U.S. and Israeli intelligence. They also proposed the FUTURES Act to "integrate" (merge) U.S. and Israeli military cooperation in a way that exempts it from congressional oversight and limitations. Both efforts were blocked by Democrats.

MAGA then tried to jam the Section 622 Intelligence provisions into the current NDAA bills but were prevented. They did however insert provisions from the FUTURES ACT under the title, "U.S–Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative." Those provisions shift significant portions of U.S-Israel military cooperation authority and oversight from Congress to a newly-created "Executive Agent" in the Pentagon.

Democrats were prevented from including provisions regarding human-rights, defunding Gaza operations, or exempting AI autonomous weapon development.

If passed, the current NDAA language would create a unique military relationship with Israel that no other nation has – not even the United Kingdom, NATO, or Japan. A relationship with substantially reduced congressional oversight and input.

What We Can Do

Last week, Democrats in the Senate used the filibuster to block the NDAA. For the most part, their opposition was based on the lack of Iran War accountability, the provisions related to Israel, and the huge 28% increase. We need them to continue filibustering against the NDAA until those issues are adequately addressed and to prevent Republicans from inserting the SAVE Act into it.

As this political battle rages in Congress over the coming weeks, we will be issuing Calls to Action asking Indivisible members to repeatedly contact their members of Congress to insist on adamant opposition to the current NDAA bills. The Defense Industry lobby, AIPAC, and the MAGA political machine will be flooding Congress with pro-NDAA calls and messages. We need to fight back diligently and fiercely.

This is not going to be an easy fight. Both Republicans and Democrats are under tremendous pressure from their big donors to pass the NDAA as-is.

To pass the bill, Republicans must overcome the Democratic filibuster. That's done by passing a "cloture" motion which requires 60 votes. To sustain the filibuster, we need 41 votes in the Senate. There are 47 Democratic/Independent senators. Assuming no Republicans break ranks, that means we can only afford to lose six votes and still hold the filibuster. If seven Democrats cross over to side with the Republicans, they win the cloture vote and the NDAA passes.

It's vital that we understand the difference between voting to sustain the filibuster (by a "Nay" on any cloture motion) and voting against the NDAA bill itself. In the past, some Democratic senators voted "Aye" to kill the filibuster that was preventing passage of a bill that was unpopular with their constituents, then proudly proclaimed a meaningless show-vote against the bill itself. That's a political scam because the big donors know the power is in the filibuster vote, while most voters just look at the bill-vote.

Last week 43 Democrats voted to sustain the filibuster (four did not vote). That was a victory. But the Republicans will try again and we need Democrats to hold fast. That's our job.