The primary responsibility of the federal government is to provide for the common defense. That’s why for 54 consecutive years, Congress has passed and the President has signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), vital legislation which authorizes the funding and support our troops need to defend the nation.
It is testimony to the NDAA’s critical importance to America’s national security, and to the men and women who serve in our military, that this legislation continues to enjoy broad bipartisan support year after year.
As a former military officer, it’s difficult for me to imagine how anyone in Congress could vote against this critical piece of legislation.
Yet a small minority of presidential candidates has broken with this decades-long national security consensus by consistently voting against the NDAA. In fact, Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders are two of just five senators who have opposed the NDAA each of the last three years, putting them on the very fringe in their approach to military readiness.
It’s important to understand that the NDAA is not a symbolic piece of legislation or a PR stunt. It’s the backbone of our armed forces. It invests in training and equipment for our troops, cares for their families and authorizes pay increases.
The NDAA is critical to protecting American interest by supporting our allies and friends around the world. For example, over the last three years, the NDAA has provided billions of dollars for U.S.-Israel defense programs, including the Iron Dome missile defense system that protects Israel from terrorist rockets. The NDAA also authorized nearly $14 billion to support Afghan security forces as they seek to secure their country and defeat our common terrorist enemies.
This year, the NDAA provided $300 million in military assistance for Ukraine to resist Russian aggression. It also provided $50 million to help allies and partners improve their maritime capabilities amid China’s bullying behavior in the South China Sea. These are a few of the crucial programs for our troops and our allies that Senators Sanders and Cruz voted against year after year.
It was particularly disappointing to see some of those candidates vote against this year’s NDAA, which the Heritage Foundation called “one of the biggest defense reform bills in decades.”
In addition to funding critical military programs, this year’s NDAA – for the first time in a generation – made meaningful steps in reforming the bloated Pentagon bureaucracy. As a fiscal conservative, I am particularly proud of these reforms. This year’s NDAA identified billions of dollars in wasteful administrative overhead in President Obama’s budget request and reinvested those funds in our warfighters. The NDAA also included sweeping reforms to the way the Pentagon buys its weapons systems to cut back inefficient projects and reprogramed that money to protect our military technological superiority.
Perhaps the biggest reform was the modernization of the 70-year-old military retirement system.
The NDAA created a new system that will extend retirement benefits to over 80 percent of military service members and give them the choice to use a portion of their retirement savings to start a new career, buy a home, or put their kids through college. It’s difficult to overstate how many veterans these reforms will now help.
Some of the candidates who voted against the NDAA claim that they did so not because they oppose funding the troops, but because they fear that the bill would somehow allow a president to indefinitely detain American citizens and deprive them of their rights. But the Wall Street Journal labeled this “paranoia” and “woefully uninformed.” Ignorance is no excuse for voting against these commonsense measures.
Which leads me to a troubling question: could we expect someone who has consistently voted against the NDAA in the Senate not to veto it if they were to get to the Oval Office?
During a time when threats to our national security are increasing around the world, we need a Commander-in-Chief that understands the Oval Office is not a place for farfetched legal theorizing. We need a Commander-in-Chief who stands with our men and women in uniform. We need a president who understands what is necessary to keep Americans safe.
Congressman Chris Stewart (R-UT) sits on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He is a world-record setting former Air Force pilot and multiple NYT bestselling author.