Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), asupporterof Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden, has joined a call to cut U.S. military funding at a time when tensions, including the possibility of a military conflict, with communist China are rapidly increasing.
Ocasio-Cortez signed onto a letter with 29 other far-left Democrat lawmakers to the House Armed Services Committee that demanded a “reduction in defense spending during the coronavirus pandemic.”
“As you draft this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), we encourage you to authorize a level of spending below last year’s authorized level,” the letter stated. “Congress must remain focused on responding to the coronavirus pandemic and distributing needed aid domestically. In order to do so, appropriators must have access to increased levels of non-defense spending which could be constrained by any increase to defense spending.”
The Democrats’ argument that we must reduce defense spending in order to better fund the coronavirus response flies in the face of recent statements by officials. The U.S. federal government has spent trillions of dollars in multiple stimulus bills to combat the coronavirus pandemic, and the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said in an interview this week that in terms of the financial ability that the U.S. federal government has to combat the pandemic, “there’s a lot more we can do.”
“I will say that we’re not out of ammunition by a long shot,” Powell said. “No, there’s really no limit to what we can do with these lending programs that we have. So there’s a lot more we can do to support the economy, and we’re committed to doing everything we can as long as we need to.”
The letter that Ocasio-Cortez, who is helping advise the Biden campaign on policy, signed onto calls the coronavirus “our greatest adversary.”
“America needs a coronavirus cure, not more war,” the letter concluded. “We need more testing, not more bombs. In order to reopen our nation in a data-driven, safe manner, we need to focus our spending efforts on the millions of additional coronavirus tests and tens of thousands of additional contract tracers we will need, as well as covering treatment costs, developing therapeutics, and distributing future vaccines.”
The move by Ocasio-Cortez comes as the risk of military confrontation with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has dramatically increased in recent months over China’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan. Reuters reported at the start of the month:
As a result, Beijing faces a wave of anti-China sentiment led by the United States in the aftermath of the pandemic and needs to be prepared in a worst-case scenario for armed confrontation between the two global powers, according to people familiar with the report’s content, who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter. … Xi has revamped China’s military strategy to create a fighting force equipped to win modern wars. He is expanding China’s air and naval reach in a challenge to more than 70 years of U.S. military dominance in Asia.
President Donald Trump hammered China late last night in a series of tweets, writing, “Spokesman speaks stupidly on behalf of China, trying desperately to deflect the pain and carnage that their country spread throughout the world. Its disinformation and propaganda attack on the United States and Europe is a disgrace. It all comes from the top. They could have easily stopped the plague, but they didn’t!”
Trump later added, “China is on a massive disinformation campaign because they are desperate to have Sleepy Joe Biden win the presidential race so they can continue to rip-off the United States, as they have done for decades, until I came along!”
Author: Ryan Saavedra