WASHINGTON — Representative Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), issued the following statement on H.R. 5009, the Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025, after the CPC voted to formally oppose the NDAA as a caucus.
“It should alarm every American taxpayer that we are nearing a trillion-dollar annual budget for an agency rampant with waste, fraud, and abuse. The Pentagon failed its seventh consecutive audit this year and is the only major federal agency to never have passed one—yet it continues to receive huge boosts to funding every year. Our constituents deserve better.
“By cutting the Pentagon budget, we could reinvest in critical human needs—from health care to housing to child care—without sacrificing our national security or service member wages. It’s past time we stop padding the pockets of price-gouging military contractors who benefit from corporate consolidation and reallocate that money to domestic needs.
“Astronomical funding levels are not the only problem with this legislation. This year’s NDAA would prohibit medical treatment for military dependents under the age of 18 who are diagnosed with ‘gender dysphoria.’ If adopted, this anti-trans language banning gender-affirming care to minors would be the first federal statute targeting LGBTQ people since the 1990s when Congress adopted ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and the Defense of Marriage Act. This dangerous bigotry cannot be tolerated, let alone codified into federal law.
“In addition, this NDAA also authorizes a second Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarine at $357 million, despite the Pentagon requesting only one; imposes a hiring freeze on personnel to enhance diversity, equity inclusion in the military; prohibits funding for the working group investigating and screening for white nationalist and other racist and extremist ideologies in the military; and defunds any effort by the Pentagon to minimize the risk of climate-change impacts in major federal procurements.
“The legislation does include a substantive 14.5 percent pay raise for junior enlisted service members and 4.5 percent pay raise for all other service members, as well as additional investments in housing, health care, childcare, and spousal support. Progressives will always fight to increase pay for our service members and ensure that our veterans are well taken care of; however, this legislation on balance moves our country and our national priorities in the wrong direction.”
