“But How Will We Pay for Single Payer?,” Say the Ds & Rs Who Just Voted for Trump’s Space Force
On Wednesday, the Democratic-controlled House voted to pass the FY 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, a $738-billion bill setting policy for the Pentagon.
This is an increase of more than $20 billion from FY 2019.
Among other things (a few good, like emergency funding for natural disaster responses; most bad), the bill contained $71.5 billion for “Overseas Contingency Operations,” the Pentagon’s war-making slush fund, and created Trump’s desired Space Force.
The House voted 377 to 48. 188 Democrats and 189 Republicans voted yes, and 41 Democrats, 6 Republicans, and Republican-turned-Independent Justin Amash voted no.
None of these 377 YES votes asked, “But how are we going to pay for it?” That question only gets asked — by politicians and the press — of ambitious social programs like Medicare for All. It also gets asked of modest social programs.
Rather than just using this as a mere point of contrast, I wanted to look at what the factions in the House Democratic Caucus are. Who supports the progressive position: investing more in universal health care and less in the forever war? Who supports big spending on both health care and war? And who opposes Medicare for All, but is a rubber stamp for war spending?
Three Democrats — Nanette Barragan (CA-44), Ted Lieu (CA-33), and Jose Serrano (NY-15) — were all absent. All three are also co-sponsors of Jayapal’s bill.
All 41 of the Democrats who voted against the FY 2020 NDAA are also co-sponsors of Jayapal’s Medicare for All bill: they believe we should spend more on health care and less on bombs.
Then 71 Democrats are co-sponsors of Medicare for All who also support bloated war budgets.
Last — and definitely least — are the Democrats who have not yet signed on to the Medicare for All bill (some out of vocal opposition and derision) yet were okay signing off on a massive budget increase for the Pentagon:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (CA-12) usually does not vote, but she’s in this category as well.
Most Republicans fall in the “spend on bombs, not health care” camp. However, the Republicans who voted against the NDAA fall in a “spend on nothing” camp.
The Republican/former Republican NO votes were Justin Amash (MI-03), Ken Buck (CO-04), Louie Gohmert (TX-01), Morgan Griffith (VA-09), Tom Massie (KY-04), Tom McClintock (CA-04), and Tom Rice (SC-07).
