[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 71 (Thursday, May 17, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H2818-H2819]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 OUR NATION IS AT A HISTORIC CROSSROAD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Quigley) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. QUIGLEY. Madam Speaker, I rise today because our Nation is at a 
crossroads. We are emerging from a deep recession but face a deficit 
topping $1 trillion for the 4th straight year.
  And while we all agree that we must reduce our deficit, the real 
question, of course, is: How? How we decide to reduce our deficit will 
not only define our budget, it will define who we are as a Nation. Will 
we be a Nation that cuts vital programs like food and Medicaid in order 
to not only preserve but grow an outsized defense budget? Or will we 
choose a middle ground that is balanced, bipartisan, big, and leaves 
nothing off the table, including defense?
  Sadly, the National Defense Authorization Act before us offers no 
middle ground and is not bipartisan. It is not balanced. At a time when 
we are being asked to cut education, infrastructure, and health care, 
this defense bill increases spending $4 billion over the President's 
request.
  Let me be clear. We all want to cut spending. In fact, I, myself, 
introduced a bipartisan budget that mirrored the Simpson-Bowles plan 
and would have reduced the deficit with two-thirds cuts and one-third 
revenue. But the key to developing a bipartisan, balanced plan is to 
put everything on the table, including defense.
  Military spending has more than doubled in the last 10 years and now 
comprises close to 20 percent of our overall budget. We spend almost 
four times more on defense than China and more

[[Page H2819]]

than the next 10 largest military spenders combined. We spend $500 
million a year on military bands alone.
  But it's not just about what we spend; it's also how we spend. Former 
Secretary of Defense Gates called for billions in cuts, saying, ``what 
had been a culture of endless money'' at DOD must ``become a culture of 
savings and restraint.''
  Admiral Mike Mullen once called our debt the ``greatest threat to our 
national security.''
  The Sustainable Defense Task Force and the Bipartisan Policy Center 
have also outlined close to $1 trillion in defense cuts that can still 
keep us safe.
  But this defense budget doesn't reflect the expertise of our military 
leaders, defense experts, or the American people.
  It ignores our military leaders by including a new east coast missile 
interceptor the Pentagon doesn't want, and it rolls back efforts by the 
DOD to be more energy efficient because the commanders on the ground 
know that lives are lost transporting fuel to troops abroad.
  It ignores military experts by funding the deadly V 22 Osprey, which 
is 186 percent over budget, it is not safe to fly in extreme heat or 
excessive sand, has killed 36 servicemembers, and can be replaced with 
cheaper helicopters.
  It also ignores experts such as Henry Kissinger, who promote 
drastically reducing our nuclear stockpile by including a huge funding 
increase for nuclear upgrades.
  Finally, perhaps more importantly, it ignores the American people, 
who want a smaller military footprint and want our troops home from 
Afghanistan. According to a recent report released at the Stimson 
Center, the public supports cutting the defense budget by 18 percent. 
And according to the latest opinion polls, close to seven in 10 
Americans oppose the war in Afghanistan, yet this defense bill includes 
language aimed at slowing down the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
  We aren't fighting the Cold War anymore, yet this budget continues to 
invest billions in nuclear weapons and thousands of troops stationed in 
Europe and Asia.
  Today our greatest threat is a global network of extremists who find 
safe haven in ungoverned spaces across the world. There have been at 
least 45 terrorist attacks plotted against the U.S. since 9/11, and 
each one of them was foiled, not by our mass ground forces in 
Afghanistan, but through intelligence, policing, and citizen 
engagement.
  According to terrorism expert Erik Dahl of the Naval Postgraduate 
School, when it comes to domestic attacks and securing the homeland, 
what works is really good, old-fashioned policing, law enforcement, 
tips from the public, and police informants. Our enemy today must be 
caught with less costly policing, intelligence gathering, and special 
operations, not multibillion dollar tanks and nukes.
  The real ramification of overspending on defense is not simply that 
we have too many unneeded nukes or planes, but that we don't have 
enough resources to support vital domestic investments such as health 
care, education, and infrastructure needed to remain a superpower.
  Military power is not simply about spending more than our 
adversaries. Real military power, argues Kori Schake, a former McCain 
advisor, is ``premised on the solvency of the American Government and 
the vibrancy of the U.S. economy.'' In order to maintain that vibrancy, 
we must get our fiscal house in order and do so by reexamining our 
defense spending, and making cuts and reforming where necessary.

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