House passes $840 billion military budget

Speaking Security Newsletter n°162 | 14 July 2022

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Situation

The House just passed its version of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, the annual bill responsible for setting a whole bunch of military policies, most notably the topline figure for the budget. The amount for FY2023 per the House-passed bill is $840.2 billion.

Inflation

The White House hasn’t settled on a coherent/consistent explanation for inflation yet, but when Biden has been in the mood to blame federal spending, he’s invoked the stimulus checks from the American Rescue Plan. Prices have gone up because “people have more money now because of the first major piece of legislation I passed,” Biden said in a speech in November, calling it an “irony.”

Will Biden ever criticize military spending in the same way? After all, the Pentagon budget the Democrat-controlled House just passed costs well over twice as much as those $1,400 checks did:

-Stephen (@stephensemler; stephen@securityreform.org)

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