AFGE Urges Senators Not to Privatize Commissaries
June 05, 2015
As the House is debating the 2016 Defense Authorization bill, AFGE is urging senators to support a measure that would strike a provision that would privatize commissaries and cut a crucial earned benefit that has helped military families make ends meet.
AFGE praised Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma for offering the measure to strike the anti-military family provision and Sen. Barbara Mikulski for being the lead co-sponsor. The measure enjoys bipartisan support from lawmakers and a diverse coalition that ranges from the Business Executives for National Security to the Veterans for Foreign Wars to the International Brotherhood of the Teamsters.
“The modest cost of providing military families with inexpensive but essential goods and services is almost invisible in the department’s overall budget,” said AFGE Legislative and Political Director Beth Moten in a letter to senators. In fact, “the cost of these earned benefit is less than 00.3% of the entire DoD budget. No programs provide more bang for the buck than the exchanges and commissaries.”
AFGE, expecting a vote on the measure next week, is asking all senators to cosponsor this amendment.
