As the fight over the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) heats up on Capitol Hill, House Republicans are making it clear that they will not allow passage of the bill unless it is free of contentious social issues and focused on national defense.
The NDAA sets funding levels, authorities, and priorities for the U.S. military and must be passed every year by both houses of Congress. As China continues its aggressive behavior, this year’s NDAA is being seen as a way to focus military resources toward the growing communist threat through “increased investment in precision missiles, warships and newer technologies like artificial intelligence and hypersonics.” But the Biden administration’s insistence on including taxpayer funding for free abortions for servicemembers along with mandatory training on transgender and race ideology is leading to a slew of amendments being added to this year’s bill by Republicans.
“[O]ver the last few years during the Biden administration, the military has been used as their own little social experiment,” remarked Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) on Tuesday’s edition of “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins.” “They’ve pushed everything they can from their social agenda and tried to get traction by pushing it in the military … whether it was CRT [critical race theory], … transgender issues, the Green New Deal and all of the money they’re spending on that, the transgender issue, abortion … they pushed all this stuff. And so a lot of those amendments that are out there, those 1,500 [that] members are talking about, are undoing a lot of the policies that Biden has put into place.”
As Jackson went on to emphasize, perhaps the biggest issue in the NDAA is the administration’s insertion of an expanded abortion policy into the armed forces.
“[T]he secretary of Defense a few months ago put out a memo saying that the department would pay for travel and expenses related for any member of the military or anybody associated with the Department of Defense that needed to travel from one area to another in order to have an abortion,” he explained. “And it’s long-standing law that it’s [illegal] to use money in DOD to pay for abortions or anything to do with abortions. So this is just complete disregard for the law.”
Jackson also noted that he is “putting an amendment into the NDAA to specify in no uncertain terms that money within DOD will not be used to provide abortion services, that it will not happen. … [W]e have, I think, 70 co-sponsors right now. … [W]e’re bringing it to the floor and we’re going to force every member, all 435 members of Congress, to go on the record and take a stand on this. And so I think … we’re going to pass this.”
Jackson went on to commend Senator Tommy Tuberville’s (R-Ala.) continued stand in holding up military promotions until the Biden administration rescinds its expanded military abortion policy.
“[K]udos to Senator Tommy Tuberville. Coach has stood his ground. He has had incredible pressure, not just from the Left and from the Democrats, but from people in his own party to stand down and to get out of the way of these promotions. … [H]e’s really done a good job of standing fast. And we’re going to try to help him out on the House side and pass this into law.”
Jackson further clarified that if his amendment is passed in the Senate version of the NDAA, the military promotion issue that Tuberville has remained unbending on will go away.
“If this were in there, that would completely alleviate this issue — all of the promotions would move forward and this would be a done deal,” he said. “We would go back to the way it was before the Biden administration … where elective abortions are not on the table. … We do not have the resources, the time, or the money beyond the fact of the immoral issue of doing this to be spending taxpayer dollars in the Department of Defense on abortion, not to mention the fact that it’s … illegal.”
The Texas congressman concluded by underscoring the critical importance of the military returning to its core mission.
“[F]or two years, [the Biden administration has] been pushing anything they can from their woke social agenda into the military. And now we’re just trying to get it out. We’re trying to get back to where we were. We need our military to be strong and we need them to be prepared. … [T]his is affecting our readiness. We can’t afford to have that. We have a lot of threats on the horizon with China and Russia and … Iran. We … need to be preparing ourselves for that, not trying to use the military as a social experiment.”
Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.
