Boosting Troop Pay and Strengthening Our Military

This past week, with my strong support, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (also referred to as the NDAA) to responsibly provide for our Department of Defense, support military families, and provide our servicemembers with the resources needed to keep our nation safe.

This NDAA fulfills the obligation of Congress to support our servicemembers and their families, restores focus on our war-fighting capabilities, and better ensures our military is prepared to defend our nation now and in the future.  America faces growing threats at home and abroad, and Congress has a fundamental duty to protect the security of the United States by enhancing our national defense and maximizing our influence abroad to prevent those threats from attacking us here at home.  

Passage of this NDAA helps to restore American strength in an increasingly dangerous world while being responsible stewards of taxpayer resources, but this authorization legislation is just part of what is needed.  Now, Congress must pass a Defense Appropriations bill to fund these critical operations and support our men and women in uniform.  Some highlights of the FY25 NDAA include:

Improving Servicemember Quality of Life:

• Authorizes a 19.5% increase in pay for junior enlisted servicemembers, some of whom are on government food assistance.  Enlisted pay has failed to remain competitive with the private sector.  Nor has it kept pace with inflation.  The bill authorizes a 4.5% pay raise for all other servicemembers.
  
  
• Mitigates childcare staffing shortages and eliminates fee assistance wait lists for eligible families seeking off-base childcare.
  
  
• Expands access to specialty healthcare providers and authorizes additional mental health providers to be utilized.

Restoring Focus of our Military on Lethality:

• Prohibits funding for the teaching of Critical Race Theory at Department of Defense schools, and guts the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiative with a DEI hiring freeze and pay cap within the Agency.
  
  
• Prevents a military Green New Deal by deauthorizing climate change programs and prohibiting the Department of Defense from issuing new climate change or costly greenhouse gas rules.
  
  
• Requires all military promotions, accessions, and command decisions to be based on individual merit and demonstrated performance, rather than political affiliation, race, sex, ethnicity, or religion.

Securing America's Border:

• Fully funds the account supporting the National Guard’s border deployment to better address the border crisis.
  
  
• Increases funding for Department of Defense counternarcotic activities and expands the Agency's ability to assist law enforcement in the interdiction of narcotic traffickers.

Restoring Deterrence:

• Helps to prevent Chinese aggression by strengthening our military and maintaining overmatch capabilities we need to deter the Chinese Communist Party.
  
  
• Supports Israel's right to self-defense.
  • Expands U.S.-Israel military exercises and fully funds cooperative missile defense programs.
  • Increases funding for research and development of emerging technology and anti-tunneling programs with Israel. 
    
    
• Remains focused on countering threats from state sponsors of terrorism, foreign terror organizations, and other adversaries such as Iran, Russia, and North Korea.

Meeting with North Carolina Homebuilders

At a minimum, the costs associated with meeting miscellaneous rules and regulations account for thirty three percent of the overall cost of a home.  Because of this and many other factors, communities in NC-07 (like many others) are facing an affordable housing crisis.  I talked to NC home builders this week during their visit to Washington to find ways we can work together to reduce burdensome regulations, supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, and inflation — all of which are contributing to the affordable housing crisis.

Flag Day commemorates June 14, 1777, when the Continental Congress approved the design of a national flag: “Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”  President Woodrow Wilson issued a 1916 proclamation establishing a national Flag Day on June 14 and in 1949, President Harry S. Truman signed the formal observance into law. 

We are privileged to live in the greatest nation ever known to mankind.  Let’s ensure our flag will always represent freedom, opportunity, and those heroes who bravely defend it! 

The Birth of Old Glory depicted in a painting by Percy Moran.