WITH THE RINGING IN OF THE New Year comes the arrival of the nation’s nearly $858 billion defense spending package—a $45 billion increase over President Joe Biden’s budget request that lawmakers say will advance the U.S. “strategic competition with China and Russia.”
After Congress spent a year questioning military officials and drafting the bill’s supporting elements, the annual “must-pass” National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which funds the Pentagon, made it through the Senate with just two weeks remaining in the 2022 congressional session. Eighty-three Senators voted in favor of the bill, while just 11 opposed it. One of those 11 was instrumental in putting the bill together: Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
Warren serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is responsible for drafting the legislation. As she has in years past, Warren voted against the measure as
