PREPARED REMARKS: Sanders to Vote No on NDAA

WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 - As the Senate prepares to pass the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) - which would approve close to $900 billion for the Defense Department, nearly $1 trillion when nuclear weapons and "emergency" defense spending is included - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today gave remarks on the floor of the Senate outlining the dangers of further enriching the military-industrial complex.

Sanders remarks, as prepared for delivery, are below and can be watched HERE:

M. President,

As the holiday season approaches, it's a good time to talk about our national priorities. Where we are as a nation, and where we should be going into the future.

Right now, tonight, hundreds of thousands of Americans are sleeping on the street, without a roof over their heads. You can walk just a few blocks from where we are in the Capitol building, down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the White House, and find Americans trying to stay warm, wrapped in blankets on top of steam vents. And it's not just Washington, D.C., it's virtually every major city in the country.

M. President, we need to invest in low-income and affordable housing.

M. President, today in the United States, 60 percent of our people live paycheck to paycheck. Working class people are living 7- or 8-years shorter lives than the wealthy, and the reason for that is the enormous stress that working families are facing as they try to survive in a rapidly changing society.

M. President, we need to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, so that no person in this country who works 40 hours a week lives in poverty.

M. President, in the United States today, we have a broken healthcare system in which the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry make hundreds of billions in profit every year, while 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured. There are estimates that some 60,000 Americans die every year because they don't get to a doctor when they should.

M. President, we need to do what every other major country on Earth does, and guarantee healthcare to people as a human right. In my view, the most efficient way forward to do that is through a Medicare-for-All single-payer system.

M. President, unbelievably, despite being one of the wealthiest nations on the planet, we have one of the highest rates of childhood poverty of almost any developed country on Earth, and millions of parents cannot find affordable and quality childcare. We need to make quality childcare available for all.

M. President, in America today, 25 percent of senior citizens are trying to survive on $15,000 a year or less. That is disgraceful. We need to expand Social Security benefits so that all seniors can live out their retirement with dignity and security.

That is just some of what we should be doing in Congress, if we are to be true representatives of working families and the vast majority of people in our country.

But let me take this opportunity to tell you what I think we should NOT be doing. And that is, in the coming days, with almost no debate, passing the National Defense Authorization Act, which provides $895.2 billion for the Department of Defense (DoD). When spending on nuclear weapons and "emergency" defense funding is included, the United States will spend close to $1 trillion on the military.

In other words, at a time when tens of millions of low-income and middle-class families are struggling to survive, we supposedly don't have the resources to help them. But when the military-industrial complex demands another massive payout, Congress is happy to oblige - with almost no questions asked.

The military-industrial complex speaks, and Congress responds.

Of that nearly $1 trillion dollars, about half will go to a handful of hugely profitable defense contractors. The Pentagon accounts for about two-thirds of all federal contracting, obligating more money every year than all civilian federal agencies combined.

Yet the Pentagon remains the only major federal agency that cannot pass an independent audit. DOD still can't accurately account for their finances more than 30 years after Congress made it a requirement under federal law. In the most recent failed audit attempt, DOD still could not fully account for huge portions of its more than $4 trillion dollars in assets.

The Government Accountability Office reports that DOD still cannot accurately post transactions to the correct accounts. Each year, auditors find billions of dollars the Pentagon didn't even know it had; in fiscal year 2022, Navy auditors found $4.4 billion in untracked inventory. Imagine losing $4 billion dollars.

So, M. President, I don't often agree with Elon Musk, but he is right when he says the Pentagon "has little idea how its annual budget of more than $800bn is spent."

M. President, the inability to track taxpayer dollars has allowed for massive fraud, waste, and cost over-runs in the system.

Defense contractors routinely overcharge the Pentagon by 40 percent - and sometimes more than 4,000 percent. For example, in October, RTX (formerly Raytheon) was fined $950 million for inflating bills to the DoD, lying about labor and material costs, and paying bribes to secure foreign business. In June, Lockheed Martin was fined $70 million for overcharging the navy for aircraft parts, the latest in a long line of similar abuses. The F-35, the most expensive weapon system in history, has run up hundreds of billions in cost overruns. GAO now estimates it will cost more than $2 trillion to develop, maintain, and operate the jet through its lifetime.

M. President, today, as a result of massive consolidation in the industry, a large portion of the Pentagon budget now goes to just a handful of huge defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, RTX, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman. That consolidation has been extremely profitable for the industry: since 2022, these four contractors have brought in $609 billion in revenues, including $353 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds, and recorded $57 billion in profits. During that same period, they have spent $61 billion on dividends and stock buybacks to make their wealthy shareholders even richer.

That's just four companies over less than three years, taking $353 billion in taxpayer money and handing $61 billion back to rich shareholders.

M. President, it's worthwhile listening to what Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said earlier this year to a defense industry convention: "Many of you are making record profits, as evidenced by your quarterly financial statements…You can't be asking for the American taxpayer to make greater public investments while you continue to goose your stock prices through stock buybacks…and other accounting maneuvers." That's the Secretary of the Navy.

M. President, it's not only fraud and cost overruns that drive up military spending. The major defense contractors also provide their CEOs with exorbitant compensation packages. In the last three years for which information is available, the top-four defense companies paid their CEOs more than $257 million combined. These companies are significantly reliant on the U.S. taxpayer, yet they pay their CEOs about 100 times more than the Secretary of Defense and 500 times more than the average newly enlisted service member.

How does this happen? How do we keep handing huge amounts of money to companies that routinely overcharge the American taxpayer and often engage in fraud?

The answer is not complicated. These companies - like the drug companies, insurance companies, Wall Street, and the fossil fuel industry - spend millions on campaign contributions and lobbying. In the recent election cycle, defense contractors spent nearly $251 million on lobbying and contributed almost $37 million to political candidates. Surprise, surprise! Most members of Congress vote for greatly inflated military budgets with few questions asked.

M. President, the waste and fraud in the defense industry is not just costing American taxpayer dollars. It's costing lives.

Take the war in Ukraine. The U.S. is providing many billions of dollars to help defend Ukraine from Putin's barbaric invasion. Despite their record-breaking profits, many defense contractors said they couldn't ramp up production of key items without more taxpayer support. And so Congress repeatedly appropriated emergency funding, with roughly $78.5 billion going to buy equipment and services from the major defense contractors.

How did those "patriotic" companies respond? They jacked up prices. RTX increased prices for Stinger missiles from $25,000 in the 1990s to $400,000 in 2023. Even accounting for inflation and improvements to technology, that is outrageous. But it wasn't enough for RTX: a recent NATO contract reveals RTX is now charging approximately $745,000 per Stinger.

Lockheed Martin and RTX raised the price of the Javelin missile system from about $263,000 per unit just before the war to $350,700 this year. The United States has provided more than 10,000 Javelins to Ukraine. Similar price hikes took place for Patriot missiles, HIMARS, and other weapons.

And make no mistake: every time a contractor pads its profit margins, fewer weapons reach the frontlines. The greed of these defense contractors is not just costing American taxpayers; it's killing Ukrainians.

M. President, there's a name for this: war profiteering.

This is not a new problem. During World War II, then-Senator Harry Truman was shocked by the profits made by military contractors at the expense of servicemen and pushed to establish a bipartisan special committee to rein in defense contractors, oversee military contracts, and take back excessive payments.

The Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, or Truman Committee, was a huge success, saving an estimated $10-15 billion and thousands of lives. Congress should revive it today to investigate war profiteering and consolidation in the defense industry, and properly oversee our massive military spending.

We should also consider other ideas to reduce waste and fraud in the military-industrial complex, such as wider use of the Defense Production Act, significant penalties for audit failures, and a windfall profits tax on hugely-profitable defense companies.

M. President, most Americans would agree that we need a strong military. I certainly do.

But we do not need a defense system that is designed to make huge profits for a handful of giant defense contractors while providing less of what the country needs. We do not need to spend almost a trillion dollars on the military, while half a million Americans are homeless, children go hungry, and elderly people are unable to afford to heat their homes in the winter.

M. President, Dwight D Eisenhower, a former five-star general and Republican President, warned us about all of this in his farewell address in 1961. It would be wise for us to remember his words. This is what he said: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." What Eisenhower said was true in 1961. It is even more true today.

I will be voting against the military budget.