It should be a matter of course that self-identified leftist and progressive members of Congress should vote down the annual bloated, dangerous, war-profiteer bonanza that is the military budget

Last week, Senator Bernie Sanders cast a vote that should be expected of all left-leaning politicians in Congress: he voted against giving $886 billion to the Pentagon.

In his speech explaining why he could not support this massive giveaway to the military industrial complex, Sanders noted the urgent domestic problems that should take priority over fattening the already-engorged military-industrial complex: climate change, health care, childcare, education, housing, and the declining life expectancy of the American working class.

Congress, Sanders said, has “partisan fights over all kinds of things.” Yet somehow, every year, he pointed out, there’s “one thing they all agree on: more money for the Pentagon.” He also offered an amendment to cut military spending by 10 percent, which sadly got only eleven votes.

Sanders had many sound reasons for his vote. He pointed out that a government truly concerned with “national security” would address the unprecedented flooding in his state that is destroying people’s homes or provide help to the Americans “sleeping on the street.” Instead, he said, the United States spends more on its military than “the next ten countries combined, most of whom are our allies,” and much more than either China or Russia. Indeed, most years, he observed, Congress gives the military more money than it asks for, with the result that the Pentagon has “so much taxpayer money that it doesn’t know what to do with.” Sanders also argued that much of that funding is squandered in waste, fraud, and abuse — and almost half goes to “corporate welfare,” or private military contractors.

These are well-trodden points about the military among leftists, but they’re well-trodden because the military’s bloated budget stays so incredibly bloated. When Sanders notes that government elites insist that “we don’t have the money” to give everyone health care, as other rich countries do, while showering the military with needless billions, he sounds just as indignant as he has while making this same case throughout his entire political career. He also pointed out that even after a million COVID-19 deaths, we aren’t prepared for the next pandemic, another urgent matter of “national security.”

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