Senators Sanders, Paul right to delay defense bill veto override

Conservative Republican Senator Rand Paul and progressive Independent Senator Bernie Sanders almost never agree on policy. But both are threatening to delay the Senate override of Trump’s veto of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The House overwhelmingly overrode the veto 322 to 87. The Senate will override as well. But Sanders and Paul can use procedural tactics to delay the vote till Congress adjourns, forcing NDAA legislation to start over in the new 117th Congress beginning January 3.

Paul and Sanders threaten delay for different reasons. Paul’s is more important. He objects to the poison pill inserted by the perpetual war party that Trump can’t reduce troop levels in Afghanistan and Iraq without congressional approval. The Constitution only provides the Congress the power to declare war, not prevent the president ending it. It’s a supreme and sad irony that Congress has abdicated its war making power while usurping the war stopping power.

Sanders is threatening the veto override delay to force a clean vote on extending pandemic relief checks to folks making less than $75,000 ($150,000 per couple) from $600 to $2,000. The problem recognized by economists both right and left is that much of that handout is squirreled away in savings by folks still working and not economically damaged by pandemic. Their money should all go to the unemployed, struggling businesses and state/local governments decimated by reduced tax collections.

The NDAA is a grotesque, $740 billion giveaway to the munitions makers, the bloated military and the proponents of endless war around the world. It should be drastically scaled back to pay for pandemic relief, national health care, infrastructure, education, green energy; indeed, all the things that make life livable.

Bravo to Senators Sanders and Paul for even a tiny delay.