The Senate passed the $847 billion National Defense Authorization Act by an 83-11 vote, sending the bill to President Joe Biden’s desk with a difficult choice to make, Politico reports. While the act provides $45 billion more than Biden requested to deal with inflation and supply chain issues, it also revokes the mandate for members of the military to get the coronavirus vaccine, a moral victory for Republicans.
Although the military made no such objections and have a slew of other vaccines mandated, Republicans claimed the vaccines would force tens of thousands to leave the military and stifle recruit, which is already reeling because we don’t pay the military enough (the money goes to contractors) and we had disastrous manpower issues in our military because we were stuck in two wars for nearly two decades.