[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 91 (Tuesday, June 9, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3895-S3898]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AMENDMENT NO. 1521
Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I rise today to support amendment No.
1521, which would limit the use of overseas contingency operations, or
OCO, funds. I am proud to be a cosponsor of this amendment, which was
filed by the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee,
Senator Jack Reed.
I wish to start by thanking Senator McCain and Senator Reed for their
leadership in producing the underlining bill. Drafting the National
Defense Authorization Act, NDAA, is no small task, and I support many
important provisions included in the bill. As Ranking Member of the
Seapower Subcommittee, I worked with Chairman Wicker to include
provisions that will strengthen and support our Navy and Marine Corps.
Every Defense bill presents challenges and tradeoffs. There are
competing priorities and compromises. For 52 consecutive years, both
Chambers have debated the details and come up with a product that
supports and enhances our national security. However, this year's bill
presents more than just a difference over details. The overall
framework of this bill is a problem. Before us is a bill that presents
a serious question about our national values--a question that the Reed
amendment would help to answer.
Earlier this year, the Republicans pushed through a budget
resolution. That resolution clearly set forth the framework that
Chairman McCain had to work within. That framework basically said: We
are not going to address sequestration in a meaningful way. Instead, we
are only going to provide sequester relief for the defense budget. I
note that this budget resolution passed the Senate without a single
Democratic vote. I ask my colleagues to join me in objecting to an
approach that bifurcates sequester relief as though our country's
national security lies only with the Department of Defense, because
that is what this NDAA bill does. How? The bill before us takes $38
billion out of the base budget at the Department of Defense and moves
it into the OCO budget. The OCO budget is not subject to Budget Control
Act caps. The reason for this is that OCO funds are intended to support
the unknown unknowns that arise during our security operations abroad.
Using the OCO account to fund noncontingency items is irresponsible. It
is a 1-year fix, and it adds to our budget deficit. It is not fair to
our commanders on the ground, who
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have told us that we need to fix sequester permanently so they can
prepare for the long term. Using the OCO account to shield the DOD from
sequester has been called a gimmick by many.
I am for a strong national defense. However, the foundation of our
military strength is the strength of our economy. It is the strength of
our communities. It is the strength of our future. Failing to fix
sequestration for both defense and nondefense will undermine the
strength of our national defense. Again, our national security is not
just tied to our military strength. There are other national security
initiatives that are not funded by the Department of Defense. For
example, we have the State Department, the FBI, Homeland Security, the
Coast Guard, and other law enforcement agencies and programs that are
all important components of our national security. None of these
programs is funded by the Department of Defense.
In addition, the Department of Defense has said that fewer than one
in four Americans in the eligible age range are qualified to enlist in
the Armed Services. This is due to a variety of reasons, including
health, obesity, fitness, mental aptitude, et cetera. Cutting funding
to nutrition programs, education initiatives, preventative health
measures, and fitness programs will result in even fewer individuals
qualifying for our Armed Services. By not fixing both the military and
domestic sides of the budget, we are undermining the foundation of our
security and our future.
America is one country, and the decisions we make in Congress should
reflect that reality. We need to eliminate the sequester because these
across-the-board cuts hurt our middle-class families, our small
businesses, our military, and our national security. We need to
eliminate the sequester--period. To continue to be bound by mindless,
across-the-board cuts to both our defense and domestic budgets--cuts
that were never supposed to become reality--is pure folly. Congress
should come together in a spirit of bipartisan cooperation to fix
sequester.
This proposal by Senator Reed just fences the $38 billion in OCO
funds until Congress comes together to do just that. It doesn't take
the funding out of the budget. But it does prevent spending it before
relief from Budget Control Act cuts are achieved on both the defense
and domestic sides.
I urge my colleagues to support the Reed amendment to provide for a
responsible defense budget.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Flake). The Senator from West Virginia.
Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, are we in morning business?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are.
Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I have always said that being a
superpower means more than super military might. It means super
diplomacy. It would contain restraint and super fiscal responsibility.
All of these are part of being a superpower.
Admiral Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
once said that the greatest threat to our national security is our
debt--not another nation, not another army, not the fear of terrorism,
but basically our debt.
The United States has and will continue to have the greatest military
in the world. But in order to remain the most powerful, we have to get
our financial house in order. I think we all agree to that, but we
don't seem to be practicing it very much.
I fully support Senator Reed's amendment to basically fence the OCO
funding.
If we look to see how we have gotten ourselves into the situation we
have now, it is not Democrat or Republican. It is our fault, and it is
our responsibility to fix it. Basically, we have had two wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq that we didn't fund. We did it through accounting
procedures, emergency procedures, and contingency funds. Now we
continue to expand upon that, if we go down this route without fixing
it with Senator Reed's amendment.
Ensuring the safety of the American people does not mean increasing
defense spending to fund never-ending wars in the Middle East while
ignoring nondefense programs that are also crucial to our national
security. I have said this over and over. If we thought money and
military might could fix that part of the world, the United States of
America would have done it by now.
For years, critical nondefense programs, such as the Department of
Homeland Security and the State Department, have been forced to absorb
damaging across-the-board cuts. They are also extremely important in
safeguarding the homeland.
While we continue to keep in place the budget cuts for these
agencies, we have underhandedly gone around spending limits and
improperly increased war funding. The most recent gimmick we are
talking about, which has been explained, is an attempt to transfer
roughly $39 billion from the base budget to the OCO budget to increase
funding for overseas conflict. I have said time and again that after a
decade of war in the Middle East, costing more than $1.6 trillion, does
anyone believe we haven't done our part and tried? If money and might
could have changed it, we would have done it by now.
What is more important is that we are denying the funding from other
important programs that desperately need these funds to keep our
country stable, safe, and secure. In order to be truly secure, we need
our non-Department of Defense departments and agencies to be able to
function at full capacity also. The Pentagon simply cannot meet the
complex set of national security challenges without the help of other
government departments and agencies. We are all in this together. We
are all responsible to protect this country. But we are all responsible
to make sure that we can properly ensure that people have the
opportunity to take care of themselves also.
Retired Marine Corps General Mattis said: ``If you don't fund the
State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition.'' He might
have said that in jest, but I think underlying it he really meant it.
And last week showed how vulnerable our networks are to cyber attacks
from foreign nations and those who wish us harm.
We have had a cyber bill before us for many years now. We have been
told on an almost weekly or monthly basis of the threat we face from
all different countries trying to hack in to do us harm. Yet we haven't
been able to move because of the toxic political atmosphere we have
here.
Our national security is also inherently tied to our economic
security. Failures to invest in programs such as STEM education and
infrastructure projects are short sighted. Failing to provide BCA cap
relief to non-DOD departments and agencies would also shortchange our
veterans who receive employment services, transition assistance, and
housing/homeless support through other agencies such as the Department
of Labor. The bottom line is that we need to get our long-term budget
that reduces the deficit in line. Increasing the OCO money, as the bill
does right now, only hurts that goal and makes it much more difficult
and elusive.
Defense budgeting needs to be based on our long-term military
strategy, which requires the Department of Defense to focus at least 5
years into the future. This is only a 1-year plan. Do we think it is
not going to be extended and extended and extended? Do we think we are
going to start it and stop it in 1 year? I don't think so.
The fiscally responsible approach we need to take is to fix the BCA
caps. We are hearing about the whole issue of sequestration and how
horrible it is. Well, let me tell you how you can fix it: Sit down and
put together a budget that is realistic and makes our long-term
financial plans solid. That is all it takes. Yet we are unwilling to do
it. We are just condemning it. We are condemning it because it
constrains how we want to do business, which means not being held
accountable or responsible. That is all.
Every meeting I go to, whether it is nondiscretion or military
spending--we all need more to expand programs. Yet we never take the
GAO's report. The General Accountability Office says we could save $300
billion to $400 billion a year if we could just get rid of the waste
and the redundancies that go on, and we are not doing anything about
that.
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I say again that our national debt is not a Democratic problem or a
Republican problem. It is our problem. We all own this one.
In 2008, our country faced one of the worst financial crises in our
Nation's history. We added $1 trillion to our debt--on top of the
trillions of dollars already spent on two costly wars and the Bush tax
cuts, which President Obama basically extended twice.
Between the wars, the tax cuts, the recession, and our out-of-control
spending, our Nation's debt has exploded from $5 trillion to $18
trillion. Currently, our deficits are decreasing, from $1.4 trillion in
2009 down to a little under one-half billion dollars, according to the
CBO, and it is expected to remain stable for the next couple of years.
The bad news is that after 2017, if we don't change our ways, the
deficits are projected to increase over $1 trillion a year through
2025. Unless Congress can put aside partisan politics and put the
country on a fiscally sustainable path, we will add over $7.5 trillion
to our debt in the next 10 years. That is adding $7.5 trillion to $18
trillion of debt we have right now. There is no way the next generation
and the generation after will ever be able to dig out of this hole if
we don't fix it now. But we have to be smart about how we reduce
spending.
As we saw in the 2013 sequestration, indiscriminate, across-the-board
cuts harmed bad and good programs alike, did nothing to reduce waste
and abuse, and caused individuals to be furloughed and lose their jobs.
I have always said this: When you start cutting, you don't cut,
basically, the items that continue to make progress for you. When the
IRS doesn't do its job and it is incapable of doing it--the revenues
owed to this country and the taxes that people should be paying--we
can't cut back on that and expect it to be solid.
I have pushed hard for a bipartisan compromise that would reduce
spending, fix our broken tax system, and reform entitlement programs in
order to reduce our debt and provide the economy with certainty and
stability.
For instance, we could enact $2.5 trillion in deficit reduction over
the next 10 years if we just follow the Simpson-Bowles
recommendations. It is an all-encompassing approach that raises revenue
and promotes growth through comprehensive tax reform that brings our
Tax Code into the modern age--increasing efficiency and simplifying the
process for both individuals and businesses.
Additionally, the plan enacts serious entitlement reform and makes
additional targeted spending cuts aimed at long-term deficit reduction
so that we can encourage economic growth. It is crucial that we make
the necessary reforms that will make this Nation a better place for
future generations.
With that being said, I again express my support for Senator Reed's
amendment to the defense budget that would block any additional
unnecessary, unaudited spending for a continual war effort where we
have no oversight. We were elected to basically look at the process we
have.
I ask unanimous consent for an extra 2 minutes, if I could, to
finish.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MANCHIN. With that being said, Mr. President, all I am saying is
that we should be smart and learn from our past and the experiences we
have had. It has not worked well for us right now, and we can change
it. We are the only ones who can change it.
This country has a strong economy. It could be even stronger if we
work together. The bottom line is we want to be smart. We want to be
smart about where we invest our money and where we send our troops and
put Americans in harm's way. We want to be smart in the domestic
investments we make here in this country. We want to make sure they are
working. If they are not working, then, you know what, do not be afraid
to say: I tried and it did not work. I am going to try something
different.
Basically, if you have two programs doing the same thing,
consolidate. Let's start looking for ways that we can run this country
the way each American is expected to run their life. Every small
business or large business is expected to make prudent investments and
work efficiently. That is all we have asked for. This type of spending,
basically unaccountable, will lead us down the path to increase the
debt and does not make us any more secure and gets us involved in
places where we do not have any oversight or any input.
I do not--I do not--as a U.S. Senator wish to walk away from my
responsibilities to make recommendations for what I think would be best
for not only the West Virginia people, whom I represent, but for this
entire country, which I love.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I voted against the Budget Control Act as
a Member of the House of Representatives because I did not think it was
a responsible course for our country. To me, ``sequestration'' is just
a fancy term for mindless budget cuts. Unfortunately, sequestration
became law and the mandated across-the-board spending cuts went into
effect in March of 2013.
I have been fighting to completely eliminate sequestration through a
balanced approach to Federal spending and changes to our Tax Code to
reduce our budget deficit. That is why I am very disappointed that the
Defense authorization bill we are considering today uses a budget
gimmick to end sequestration cuts for defense spending but continues to
impose mandatory cuts for critical domestic priorities, such as
education, health care, and medical research.
This legislation transfers nearly $40 billion in defense spending to
a glorified slush fund called the overseas contingency operations
account, OCO account, as a way to avoid triggering sequestration cuts.
Let's be clear. OCO really stands for ``open checkbook operation'' for
our budget, and it stands for ``outrageous copout'' by the GOP.
Instead of cutting funding for defense, Republicans choose instead to
cut programs for the defenseless. This is not responsible budgeting; it
is a cynical game. The majority is attempting to avoid its
responsibilities under sequestration that they themselves demanded be
enacted into law just a few years ago. Instead, we get $40 billion in
additional spending for the Pentagon and $36 billion in cuts to food
stamps, Head Start, preventive health care, and critical social
programs.
This is what the game is all about. Sequestration is now being
dishonored. They believe they have found an exit ramp for the Defense
Department for the cuts that they had accepted as a party--the
Republicans--would be imposed if the Democrats would accept in equal
measure cuts in social programs. That is the deal, a sword of Damocles
hanging over both programs, defense and nondefense--that is civilian
and domestic programs--to force us as an institution to work together
in a responsible fashion. That was the deal with sequestration. That
was the point of it. It was to force us to work together. Instead, the
Republicans want an exit ramp for the Defense Department out of the
sequestration program while allowing the social programs for the poor,
for the sick, and for the elderly to stay inside of these cuts that
occur under a sword of Damocles on an automatic basis.
We are endangering our ability to teach our kids the skills they will
need for the jobs of the future. We are making it harder for poor
families in Massachusetts and across the country to put food on the
table. We are jeopardizing the health of grandma and grandpa.
And what are we really protecting when we mandate these cuts for
critical social programs but not for our defense spending? We are
protecting America's nuclear arsenal budget of $50 billion a year that
is filled with waste and can be cut significantly without harming our
national security. We spend more money on nuclear weapons than all
other countries combined. This is the epitome of overkill. Can we find
anything in the nuclear weapons budget that could be cut? Absolutely
not, say the Republicans. We have to increase that budget. How are we
going to pay for it? We are going to pay for it from poor children,
from the elderly in our country.
We spend more money on nuclear weapons just because the Defense
Department and the military contractors want them. That is why I have
introduced legislation with Jeff Merkley,
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Bernie Sanders, and Al Franken called the SANE Act, the Smarter
Approach to Nuclear Expenditures Act. It would cut $100 billion over
the next 10 years from our bloated nuclear weapons budget.
It is time to stop funding a nuclear weapons budget that threatens to
undermine our long-term economic security. We should be funding
education, not annihilation. We should be helping people find jobs, not
helping to build new nuclear weapons. We should be curing diseases, not
creating new instruments of death.
Even within our own budget, the Department of Defense should be
prioritizing higher pay for marines, not more Minutemen missiles.
Somewhere, Dr. Strangelove is smiling from the grave while millions of
American families struggle to meet the daily budget they have to
balance.
I am a cosponsor of the Reed amendment to stop any increase in this
so-called OCO account until the Budget Control Act caps for both
defense and nondefense spending are lifted equally.
For those who say the cuts to defense spending endanger our security,
I say we face a very real type of economic security threat here at
home. Millions of seniors worry about an end to Medicare and Medicaid.
Millions of students need help to pay for college. Millions of American
workers cannot make ends meet on the minimum wage.
I support the Reed amendment. That will keep America truly safe,
healthy, and secure.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. MARKEY. I yield the floor.
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