Press Releases

Today, Congressman Richard E. Neal released the following statement after joining his Democratic colleagues in voting against passage of H.R. 2670 – National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2024. 

 “Every year, Congress has the awesome responsibility of authorizing the expenditure of our nation’s military. The NDAA is supposed to serve as a force for good, providing for our troops, their families, and our communities as a whole. I supported the base text of this legislation that passed almost unanimously out of the House Armed Services Committee and the provisions that would have been of great benefit to the First District; this includes a 5.2% pay raise for servicemembers, authorizing funding to procure F-35A aircraft, a fleet of which will be stationed at Barnes Air National Guard Base, and authorizing projects that will directly impact the workforce at General Dynamics and Warren Pumps. 

“However, House Republicans took it upon themselves to politicize this historically bipartisan legislation, introducing extremist amendments that resulted in a bill my Democratic colleagues and I could no longer support. I look forward to when this legislation goes to conference and these harmful provisions are no longer included so that we may get back to the difficult work of legislating. This is supposed to be about doing the people’s business and supporting our men and women in uniform, not promoting an extremist agenda.”