Sanders wants war spending paid for

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wants to require Congress to pay for any spending in the Pentagon’s war fund.

Sanders, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, is offering an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would require that lawmakers offset spending in the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) fund by raising new revenues.

{mosads}Congress isn’t currently required to pay for any spending through OCO. The war fund also isn’t subjected to the congressionally mandated budget caps under the sequester.

Sanders has long criticized Congress for not paying for wars, and a fact sheet from his office says that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars “were put on the nation’s credit card while the president cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires at the same time.”

The 2016 contender’s amendment to the defense policy bill comes after he called for a “war tax” earlier this year.

Sanders wanted to include a new tax on millionaires to finance the country’s wars as part of a budget resolution.

Critics argue that the fund, meant to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and now financing operations against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, has turned into a slush fund for the Pentagon.

Sanders faces an uphill path to getting his amendment approved as part of the defense policy bill. Though Democrats have taken aim at an additional $38 billion in war funding included in the defense policy bill, they failed to gain enough support to fence off the money until Congress reaches a deal on the budget caps under the sequester.