It comes as no surprise that conservatives in the House of Representatives would take on the woke, social-justice-spewing Pentagon. In a move falling squarely in the “well, it’s about time” category, House Freedom Caucus Republicans supported and the House passed the $886.3 billion FY2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) with provisions that reverse the Biden Pentagon’s radical woke agenda. Department of Defense (DOD) officials cannot claim they didn’t know this fight was coming.
Pentagon Learns All About Go Woke, Go Broke
The 219-210 vote margin that carried the legislation was an unambiguous message by House Republicans. “It was also an important victory for every American in this country that want to see our military focused on our enemies abroad, not on wokeness and all of the indoctrination attempts you’re seeing within the Pentagon. It was a massive rebuke of that far-left ideology,” Representative Steve Scalise (R-LA) told a press stake-out following the vote. Perhaps this legislative language will end the use of culture war curriculums in service academies and elsewhere in the military.
“The core tenets of the NDAA are simple, modernize and bolster our military, take care of our men and women in uniform, and cut out the woke garbage that the Biden administration has forced on our service members,” Rep. Thomas Emmer (R-MN) explained. The “woke garbage” includes teaching and advocating for racist and divisive social justice ideologies. “While funding an array of defense programs, the legislation also prohibited Pentagon spending on training involving critical race theory, removed the Defense Department’s chief diversity officer position, banned drag shows at military sites and declined to authorize climate change programs, among other provisions,” per the New York Post.
Military Capability in the FY2024 NDAA
House Republicans put the people’s money where their legislative mouths were, demonstrating strong support for the US military capability with a $28 billion increase over the FY2023 authorization, including a 5.2% increase in military pay. The FY2024 NDAA authorized the largest single increase for military and civilian salaries in over two decades. Enhancing US military capability to deter – and, if necessary and possible, defeat – China, the authorization for US Indo-Pacific Command is $9.7 billion, or $600 million more than the Biden administration requested.
While facing severe recruiting problems, the US Navy’s desire to use men in drag to lure potential recruits raised the ire of Republican legislators’ constituencies, prompting the anti-woke reaction codified in the House version of the FY2024 NDAA. “None of the funds authorized to be appropriated by this may be obligated or expended for drag show, drag queen story, or similar event,” the bill reads.
Taxpayer Funding for Behavioral Proclivities
(Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
The House authorization bill also distanced itself from the taxpayers having to pay for sex reassignment surgeries and related services. Section 714 prohibits the Armed Forces medical services program TRICARE from providing “Sex reassignment surgeries furnished for the purpose of the gender alteration of a transgender individual,” and “Hormone treatments furnished for the purpose of gender alteration of transgender individuals.” Furthermore, the legislative amendments included “Prohibition on payment and reimbursement by the Department of Defense of expenses relating to abortion services…except where the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term or in a case in which the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest.” This provision addresses the Secretary of Defense policy to use taxpayer dollars to circumvent the recent Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.
The House-passed FY2024 NDAA establishes a strong commitment to the American people by emphasizing the critical elements of maintaining a formidable armed forces with peerless capability. House Republicans also passed a bill to leave no doubt in anyone’s mind about what is important to sustain national security imperatives – and it isn’t funding woke warriors.
