Marjorie Taylor Greene Manages To Get $1 Salary For Secretary Of Defense Passed In the House
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) managed to insert a provision into a short-term funding bill that would reduce the yearly salary of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to just $1.
The Republican-controlled House is presently barreling toward a government shutdown at the end of the month thanks to GOP lawmakers’ inability to agree on spending bills amongst themselves. On Tuesday, the Senate passed a 45-day stopgap bill that would, if passed by the House and signed by President Joe Biden, keep the government funded until mid-November. In the meantime, the House could try to hammer out twelve separate spending bills that would earn the backing of the Senate and the White House.
Rather than pass one large spending package to fund the government, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and a handful of other Republicans are insisting Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) bring a dozen bills to the floor for individual votes. The stipulation was part of a deal Gaetz reached with McCarthy in January, whereby the former withdrew his opposition to the latter’s bid for the speakership.
During floor speeches on Wednesday, Greene used her allotted time to present an amendment.
“I would like to introduce an amendment that uses the Holman rule to slash the secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin’s salary, to no more than a $1,” she began. “Secretary Austin has not fulfilled his job duties. As a matter of fact, he’s destroying our military. During Secretary Austin’s tenure, military recruitment has reached crisis levels of low recruitment. The numbers show that the Army expects to fall 15,000 recruits short of its annual recruiting goal this year. The Navy is expecting to be short 10,000 recruits. The Air Force is down another 3,000. This cannot stand, especially with our government funding and fueling a war in Ukraine that is leading us undoubtedly to World War III.”
Greene’s amendment passed via voice vote.
Elsewhere, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) succeeded in inserting an amendment that would also reduce Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness Shawn Skelly’s salary to $1.
“This delusional man thinking he is a woman, embodies and espouses the woke-ism that that’s causing significant harm to our military readiness and troops’ morale!” Boebert said on the floor about the defense official, who is transgender.
The measures are unlikely to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate and White House.
Watch above via C-SPAN.
