Amid the U.S. war on Iran and the looming prospect of conflict with Cuba, Democrats are gearing up for an especially bitter fight over next year’s Pentagon budget.
As Punchbowl News reported Tuesday, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) will introduce an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2027 to cut $150 billion from the proposed and record-breaking $1.15 trillion dollar Pentagon budget.
Advocates say Moulton’s proposal is a rare one this early in the annual defense budget process.
“Even the fact that we have [this] topline challenge… is indicative that [lawmakers] are willing to push back on this total dollar amount in a way that they have not on a committee level before,” Savannah Wooten, Public Citizen's People Over Pentagon Advocate, said at a press briefing yesterday on the subject.
Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) said she will support Rep. Moulton’s amendment at the press briefing.
“Frankly, the $150 billion [cut] isn't even enough,” Rep. Jacobs said. “If [the] Armed Services Committee passes this authorization, it hands [Defense] Secretary Hegseth a blank check to keep the war in Iran going, to pursue regime change in Venezuela and Cuba, and wherever else, and to continue the lethal strikes off the coast of South America.”
“I won't stand idly by and let it happen, not when it's my community who pays the human price for what's happening,” Rep. Jacobs said.
But other political dynamics are at play.
On the condition of anonymity, a congressional aide told Responsible Statecraft that Rep. Moulton wants to cultivate a more progressive profile ahead of his senate race against Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) later this year. “I suspect he's trying to strengthen his credentials,” the aide said.
“The NDAA is an authorization bill, and cutting the top line from the NDAA doesn't save any money, and it doesn't preclude or prevent appropriators” from funding the DoD, the aide pointed out. Rep Moulton’s amendment “is a symbolic motion.”
Meanwhile, Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) will introduce an amendment to strike down section 224 of the NDAA, which, as RS reported last week, moves to more closely integrate the U.S. and Israeli militaries. Jacobs plans to support that amendment, a staffer from the lawmaker’s office told RS.
But the effort also faces an uphill battle, even as a growing number of Americans oppose Israel's actions in the Middle East. Those include its wars on Gaza and Iran, and its escalating attacks on Lebanon.
For many Republicans, Massie is “an example of what could happen to them if they break with the admin,” an advocate who works on the NDAA told RS, referencing Massie’s recent primary loss. “It is a [political] risk for Republicans to support his amendment.”
Rep. Khanna “has his work cut out for him,” they said.
As the advocate who works on the NDAA told RS, the U.S.-Israel war on Iran is “definitely the elephant in the room” in debates on the upcoming defense legislation. Democratic lawmakers, they said, want to show constituents they are taking action against it.
"Voters feel [the war] at the gas pump, and…they have seen the reports of more than 100 school girls killed in a U.S. bombing at the school in Minab," the advocate said. "They're telling their lawmakers, 'we want you to fight against this.'"
Ultimately, congressional Democrats are up against a Pentagon budget fueled by endless wars, but also by decades of runaway spending and lack of fiscal accountability.
“The administration cares more about spilling blood abroad than about the communities bleeding right here at home, and what makes it even worse is that we don't know where the money goes,” Jacobs said at the briefing. “They can't account for the trillions we've already given them, and they still want more money for war toys that aren't even necessary or useful for the war fighting of the 21st century.”
“That further emboldened our country to reach for military tools first, even though we know that development and diplomacy tools are cheaper and actually work better,” Jacobs said.