[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 91 (Tuesday, June 9, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Page S3890]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on an entirely different matter, the 
Defense authorization legislation before the Senate would authorize the 
programs and funding that provide the kind of training and equipment 
our military needs in the face of aggressive threats such as ISIL. It 
would provide a well-deserved pay raise to the brave men and women who 
give us everything to keep us safe. It contains exactly the same level 
of funding--exactly the same level of funding--President Obama 
requested in his own budget: $612 billion.
  It is just the kind of legislation you would expect to receive strong 
bipartisan support. Up until now, it has. The NDAA is a bill we 
typically consider every year, and it is one that typically passes with 
bipartisan support. This year's House bill passed with votes from both 
parties, while the Senate version of the bill passed the Armed Services 
Committee by a huge bipartisan margin of 22 to 4. That was in the 
Senate Armed Services Committee, the vote on the bill we have before 
us. It should be sailing through the Senate for passage by a similar 
margin this week, but some in the Democratic leadership are now trying 
to hold it hostage for partisan reasons.
  We live in an age when, as Henry Kissinger recently put it, ``the 
United States has not faced a more diverse and complex array of crises 
since the end of the Second World War.'' Yet some Democratic leaders 
seem to think this is the moment to hold our national security hostage 
to the partisan demands for more spending on Washington bureaucracies, 
such as the IRS. They seem to think it is OK to hold our troops and 
their families to ransom if they can't plus-up unrelated bills, such as 
the one that funds their own congressional offices.
  The Armed Services Committee chairman just penned an op-ed on the 
issue that I would ask my colleagues to read. It made many important 
points, including this one: There is bipartisan consensus that we 
cannot continue to hold defense funding at BCA levels after years of 
dangerous cuts. Military officials have told us that to do so could put 
American lives at risk, which means it is a scenario we should be 
working to avoid at all costs. But some Democratic leaders seem to view 
such a worrying scenario as little more than leverage to extract more 
spending for unrelated bureaucracies.
  ``It is the first duty of the federal government to protect the 
nation,'' Senator McCain wrote in his piece. ``With global threats 
rising, it simply makes no sense to oppose a defense policy bill full 
of vital authorities that our troops need for a reason that has nothing 
to do with national defense spending.'' He is right.
  I ask unanimous consent that Senator McCain's op-ed be printed in the 
Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
  Here is what I am asking today. I am asking every sensible Democratic 
colleague to keep onside with the American people and pull these party 
leaders back from the edge. I am asking my friends across the aisle to 
join with us to support wounded warriors instead of more partisan 
brinksmanship, to give our troops a raise instead of giving gridlock a 
boost. And I am asking them to work with us to defeat the contingency 
funding amendment offered by the senior Senator from Rhode Island so 
that we can keep this bill intact and consistent with the budget 
resolution.
  The new Congress has been on a roll in recent months, getting things 
done for the American people in a spirit of greater openness and 
cooperation. Let's keep the momentum going. Let's keep that spirit 
alive. If Senators have amendments, I would encourage them to work with 
Senator McCain to get them processed. But above all, let's ignore the 
partisan voices of the past and work together for more shared 
achievements instead. I think our troops and their families deserve no 
less.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                     [From Politico, June 9, 2015]

             Obama Is Wrong To Hold Defense Funding Hostage

                         (By Sen. John McCain)

       Congress has passed a National Defense Authorization Act, 
     vital legislation providing the necessary funding and 
     authorities for our military and the men and women who 
     volunteer to defend the nation, for 53 consecutive years. 
     This year's NDAA should be no different.
       The NDAA delivers sweeping defense reforms that will enable 
     our military to rise to the challenges of a more dangerous 
     world. The legislation contains the most significant reforms 
     in a generation to a broken acquisition system that takes too 
     long and costs too much. It modernizes and improves our 70-
     year-old military retirement system, expanding benefits to 
     the vast majority of service members excluded from the 
     current system. The NDAA reforms Pentagon management to 
     ensure precious defense dollars are focused on our war 
     fighters, not on expanding bloated staffs, which have grown 
     exponentially in recent years.
       With $10 billion in wasteful and excessive spending 
     identified in the Pentagon's budget, the legislation invests 
     in crucial military capabilities for our war fighters. The 
     bill accelerates Navy shipbuilding and adds fighter aircraft 
     to address shortfalls across the services. As adversaries 
     threaten our military technological advantage, the bill looks 
     to the future and invests in new breakthrough technologies, 
     including directed energy and unmanned combat aircraft.
       Despite these critical reforms, President Barack Obama is 
     threatening to veto the NDAA and future defense spending 
     bills for reasons totally unrelated to national security.
       The Budget Control Act, which set in motion dangerous 
     defense cuts, establishes caps on defense and nondefense 
     discretionary spending. There is bipartisan consensus on the 
     dangerous impact these spending caps would have on defense. 
     All of the military service chiefs testified this year that 
     funding defense at the level of the BCA caps would put 
     American lives at risk.
       Rather than seeking to avoid this scenario at all costs, 
     the president is using it as leverage to extract increases in 
     nondefense spending. As his veto threat made clear, the 
     president ``will not fix defense without fixing non-defense 
     spending.''
       Such intransigence shows a disturbing misalignment of White 
     House priorities. It is the first duty of the federal 
     government to protect the nation. With global threats rising, 
     it simply makes no sense to oppose a defense policy bill full 
     of vital authorities that our troops need for a reason that 
     has nothing to do with national defense spending.
       The NDAA fully supports Obama's budget request of $612 
     billion for national defense, which is $38 billion above the 
     spending caps established by the Budget Control Act. In other 
     words, this legislation gives the president every dollar of 
     budget authority he requested. The difference is that NDAA 
     follows the Senate Budget Resolution and funds that $38 
     billion increase through Overseas Contingency Operations 
     funds.
       Parroting White House rhetoric, some Senate Democrats have 
     been spreading misinformation about OCO funding, saying this 
     funding is inappropriate or somehow limited in its ability to 
     support our military. This is nonsense. The NDAA purposefully 
     placed the additional $38 billion of OCO funding in the same 
     accounts and activities for which the president himself 
     requested OCO money.
       To be clear, using OCO to pay for our national defense is 
     not my preference. But given the choice between OCO money and 
     no money, I choose OCO, and multiple senior military leaders 
     testified before the Armed Services Committee this year that 
     they would make the same choice for one simple reason. This 
     is $38 billion of real money that our military desperately 
     needs, and without which our top military leaders have said 
     they cannot succeed.
       It remains my highest priority as chairman of the Senate 
     Armed Services Committee to achieve a long-term, bipartisan 
     solution that lifts the BCA caps once and for all. Obama says 
     this is his goal as well. But the NDAA is a policy bill--not 
     a spending bill--and cannot accomplish that goal. In the 
     absence of such an agreement, I refuse to ask the brave young 
     Americans in our military to defend this nation with 
     insufficient resources that would place their lives in 
     unnecessary danger. Holding the NDAA hostage to force that 
     solution would be a deliberate and cynical failure to meet 
     our constitutional duty to provide for the common defense.
       It is simply incomprehensible that as America confronts the 
     most diverse and complex array of crises around the world 
     since the end of World War II, that a president would veto 
     funding for our military to prove a political point. The NDAA 
     before the Senate authorizes $612 billion for national 
     defense. This is the amount requested by the president and 
     justified by his own national security strategy. For the sake 
     of the men and women of our military and our national 
     security, it's time the president learned how to say yes.

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