Restore funding for military housing

Congress is poised to approve the 2023 national defense budget, which has a price tag of at least $847 billion. The amount falls somewhere between the total gross domestic products of Taiwan and Turkey. It’s more than double China’s defense budget and exponentially larger than that of any other country.

Such dizzying numbers mark National Defense Authorization Act season, and like the holiday songs on heavy repeat this time of year, our minds replay President Dwight Eisenhower’s comments on the so-called military-industrial complex.

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex,” he said during his Jan. 17, 1961, farewell speech. “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

The stark warning from the famed general is a timeless reminder to scrutinize defense spending, and the unelected power of military leaders. We expect our politicians to do the same.

That’s one reason we were disappointed, but not surprised, to see Republican Rep. Chip Roy, who represents part of

San Antonio, attacking the legislation and placing politics ahead of readiness, necessity or, for that matter, reality.

Roy and three other Republican lawmakers sent a misinformed letter to the House and Senate armed services committees calling on them to address Defense Department policies on abortion for military members and their families, the idea of selective service registration for women, COVID vaccines, climate change, and diversity and inclusion efforts.

They falsely claim DOD positions on such issues undermine military readiness and America’s trust, hurt recruiting and shift focus from national security objectives. At the same time, they correctly recognized “we must prioritize the promotion of a lethal military and ready force to defend our nation’s interests around the globe.”

The truth is that abortion, selective service registration, vaccines, climate change and respect for others are all readiness issues.

The armed services reflect society, and if they don’t keep pace with norms of the rest of the world, it is difficult to compete militarily and technologically.

While Roy’s lack of military experience permeates the letter, which is best characterized as political theater, Navy retiree Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales, who also represents part of San Antonio, joined a bipartisan group of 58 lawmakers and sent a note to DOD with a request that would help people

as opposed to pushing an agenda.

The note calls for the department to restore service members’ stipends to defray housing costs back to 100 percent. A 2015 law allowed DOD to reduce the Basic Allowance for Housing, or BAH, to 95 percent of the authorized amounts.

While that sounds negligible, it can take hundreds of dollars a month from service members’ pockets to help DOD with cost savings. The reductions, coupled with high living expenses in some markets and inflation, cause stress and hardship on those serving our country.

Underfunding a housing stipend seems more likely to hurt military recruiting and retention than those outlined in Roy’s complaint.

“Service members and their families should not be nickel and dimed by the nation they volunteered to serve, especially as Congress has increased the defense budget by 39 percent in nominal terms,” the letter says.

We agree.

It’s bad policy to go cheap on taking care of people, so we also appreciate that the National Defense Authorization Act’s current language “supports an increase in military basic pay by 4.6 % for service members, plus adds 2.4% inflation bonuses for those earning less than $45,000/year.”

The bill “will provide a pay raise and inflation bonus for our troops, new funding for on-base housing and child care, investments to prevent sexual harassment and assault, and also includes legislation I wrote to limit surprise medical bills for civilians treated at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio,” said Democrat Joaquin Castro, another area representative. “Blocking passage of the NDAA because of partisan objections to common-sense military health and safety measures would be disgraceful, and I hope my Republican colleagues will set their political grievances aside for the good of our troops.”

Funding of people programs should be easy, especially if we want to address the larger issues Eisenhower described.

“Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together,” he said.

We agree.

This underfunding more likely to hurt readiness than are culture war issues