[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 130 (Friday, September 25, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H8840-H8841]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              SHORTFALLS IN FUNDING FOR NATIONAL SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I talked yesterday about the problems with 
national security that are now becoming

[[Page H8841]]

acknowledged, not only by Members of the Congress, but also, for the 
first time in four years, by the President himself.
  Now that the President has admitted that there is a shortfall in 
funding for national security, the services themselves are coming 
forward and testifying, as they did today, and telling us what the 
problem is. They now feel that they are not circumventing their 
commander-in-chief if they lay their cards on the table before 
Congress. And let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, I was pretty shocked by the 
numbers and the situations that were described today by the Army, the 
Navy, the Marine Corps and the Air Force, and I want to share those 
numbers and those shortfalls with you.
  First I want to point your attention to what is known as mission 
capable rates. Mission capable rates mean when we have an aircraft 
carrier off the shores of the Middle East and we have planes on that 
carrier. We make an analysis as to whether or not its planes can fly 
out, hit their targets and return safely to the carrier. That is a 
pretty important part of our power projection with the U.S. Navy.
  Our mission capable rate, that means the ability of the airplane to 
fly off the carrier, wheels up, move that two or three or four hundred 
miles to its target, drop its ordnance and come back, that rate has 
gone down from 69 percent in 1993 to 61 percent today.
  With the Air Force, the mission capable rate of their aircraft has 
gone down from 83.4 percent in 1991 to 74 percent today. That means 25 
percent of their aircraft are not mission capable. They cannot do their 
job.
  With the Marines, we have gone down from 77 percent in 1995 to only 
61 percent mission capable rate today.
  Mr. Speaker, the Navy and the Marine Corps and the Army also talked 
about other aspects of their equipment that are now in shortfall. You 
know we had a 600 ship Navy a few years ago under president Ronald 
Reagan. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, we decided we could 
bring that Navy down some. But this president, President Clinton, is 
building ships at such a slow rate that we are building to a 200 ship 
Navy. We are going from a 600 ship Navy to a 200 ship Navy, and we 
cannot accomplish our responsibilities around the world with a fleet 
that small.

  With respect to ammunition, the service chiefs told us that our 
ammunition shortfall now is 1.7 billion for the Army and 193 million 
for the United States Marine Corps. Ammunition is pretty basic, and we 
do not have what we need.
  With respect to equipment, this CH-46 helicopter is right now the 
mainstay for the United States Marine Corps until they get the V-22. 
That aircraft, which has had a number of crashes in the last several 
years, is over 40 years old. Their attack vehicle, their amphibious 
vehicle that they ride out of the ships on and go right up on the 
beaches when they have to make a front-on assault, that vehicle is an 
average of 26 years old.
  With respect to personnel, the United States Air Force is going to be 
700 pilots short this year and the United States Navy is going to be 
18,000 sailors short this year. The U.S. Marine Corps aviators are 
having a separation rate, that means the rate where they come in and 
tell their unit I am leaving; I could reenlist, but I am leaving; I am 
going to go into private enterprise. I may be a pilot for an airline, I 
am leaving. Only 42 percent of them separated in 1995. Most of them 
stayed on with the Marine Corps. Today, 92 percent of our pilots are 
leaving. They are getting out of Dodge. They are going into the private 
sector. That leaves us short.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I will continue over the next several weeks to talk 
a little bit more about the shortages we have in defense, and lastly I 
will talk a little bit about what we are going to have to do in terms 
of putting resources into defense to rebuild our military.

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