[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 117 (Thursday, July 12, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H6164-H6166]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                CONTINUING RESOLUTIONS HURT THE MILITARY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Taylor) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.


                             General Leave

  Mr. TAYLOR. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include 
extraneous material on the topic of this Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Virginia?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. TAYLOR. Madam Speaker, we are here tonight to speak about how, 
for far too long, Congress has passed continuing resolutions that have 
devastating effects on our military and national security apparatus. 
They have hurt our maintenance, readiness, training, and contracting, 
causing a cascading and negative effect in extending our deployment 
schedules, which hurt our strong military families, who are the very 
foundation of our force.
  Indeed, Secretary Mattis said in January 2018:

       As hard as the last 16 years have been, no enemy in the 
     field has done more to harm the readiness of the U.S. 
     military than the combined impact of the Budget Control 
     Act's defense spending cuts and operating under continuing 
     resolutions.

  Madam Speaker, Congress has passed continuing resolutions for 9 out 
of the past 10 years.
  I will say, Madam Speaker, that I am encouraged, skeptical, and 
hopeful that Congress will move toward regular order this year and 
forego a continuing resolution for the defense of this Nation later 
this year: encouraged, because the Senate has expressed they will take 
up defense appropriations and move it to the floor for the first time 
in years; skeptical, because I am a realist, and they will attach 
another bill to it, which will make it tougher to get passed; hopeful, 
because I am an optimist. We all know it is the right thing to do, and 
we are pushing to make it happen.
  Madam Speaker, I have the great honor of representing the district 
with more military and veterans than anywhere in the Nation. If 
anything is going on in the world, our men and women are there on the 
front lines, fighting for families, fighting for friends, fighting for 
freedom.
  We, in Congress, owe them better. We must do better. We must get our 
acts together and lead with the courage and the spirit of our Nation, 
and the courage and spirit of those men and women in uniform who stand 
watch for us every single day.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter).
  Mr. HUNTER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia for 
his service. If you don't know, Scott Taylor enlisted in the Navy SEALs 
in 1997, got out, and then went back to Iraq in 2005. In Ramadi, as a 
Navy SEAL sniper, he was injured. And here he is now.
  I thank the gentleman for doing this. Like all or most Navy SEALs, 
the gentleman does great when the camera is on him. As a Congressman, 
the camera is always on him, so he does very well in this job.
  I would like to bring up one point that really struck me, because of 
the Budget Control Act and the continuing resolutions. The former 
Speaker of the House, when we passed this 9 years ago, looked us in the 
eye and said: This will never pass. It is too horrible. This will never 
happen. It is too horrible for the military. It hurts it too badly.
  That is what the former Speaker of the House said. When he looked the 
Armed Services Committee in the eye and told them that, a lot of the 
Members proceeded to vote ``yes'' on the Budget Control Act, and that 
put us where we are now.
  Let me tell you where the Budget Control Act has put us. In 2017, you 
had about 80 servicemembers die in training. That doesn't include drunk 
driving or falling off a cliff. But in training in the United States, 
all four branches of service, you had more than 80 servicemembers die 
last year just training.
  You had 21 servicemembers die in combat. So you had 21 service people 
die in combat zones where they are getting shot at and fighting the 
enemy, and more than 80 people died back here at home just training.
  The Budget Control Act and the continuing resolutions that we have 
been

[[Page H6165]]

doing have literally made it safer to go to war in Iraq, Afghanistan, 
Syria, Philippines. Name your place, it is safer than training here at 
home. It is safer than getting in a C-130 and flying here at home. It 
is safer to do it overseas.
  That is a sad state for our American military, and it is a sad state 
of affairs for this Congress.
  What Mr. Taylor said is absolutely right. The Senate needs to work on 
this. We are going to pass it. We are going to get a clean bill back 
from them.
  It would be fantastic to be able to move forward and get out of these 
continuing resolutions and stay out of them. Once we started this, 
again, it took 9 years to get to where we are now, where we are finally 
getting out of it with the deals that this Speaker has made and with 
what this Senate has done.
  Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman again for his service and for 
doing this Special Order this evening.
  Mr. TAYLOR. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California, who 
is also a combat marine. I won't hold it against him. He is a marine, 
and we are appreciative of him being here and of his time in Iraq and 
Afghanistan in defending what we hold dear.
  He is a leader on military and defense issues and national security 
issues here in Congress, so we truly appreciate his service then and 
now.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. 
Hartzler).
  Mrs. HARTZLER. Madam Speaker, I thank Congressman Taylor for hosting 
this very important, special event tonight.
  As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I have heard too 
many testimonies after testimonies talking about the dangerously low 
level of our military's readiness.
  Years of budget cuts, coupled with continuing resolutions, have 
prevented and delayed the modernization of our airplanes, ships, and 
basic equipment, while at the same time reducing the readiness of our 
troops around the globe.
  Here is the stunning and sobering reality: Today, we have the 
smallest Army since before World War II, the smallest Navy since before 
World War I, and the smallest Air Force we have ever had. Only 50 
percent of our Nation's fighter and bomber forces are able to fly, 
fight, and decisively win a highly contested fight, much like our 
forces would encounter with China and Russia.
  Get this: Less than half of the Navy's aircraft can fly due to 
maintenance and spare parts issues. Think about that. Less than half of 
the Navy's aircraft can fly due to maintenance and spare parts issues.
  Budget cuts and increased operations have depleted America's supply 
of precision ammunitions. Simply put, we are running out of bombs.
  Two Navy destroyers were involved in collisions that will take years 
to repair, resulting in the tragic deaths of 17 sailors--17 sailors of 
the 80 that my colleague from California, Representative Duncan, just 
shared about, where we lost 80 soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines 
in training accidents last year.

  We lost 17 in this accident dealing with the two Navy destroyers. I 
saw the impact of this accident personally in September when I toured 
the USS Fitzgerald as part of an Armed Services fact-finding mission. I 
stood in the room where seven sailors died when their ship collided 
with a commercial freighter a little after 1 in the morning, tearing a 
huge hole in the side of the ship and flooding their room where they 
were sleeping with water in a little under 2 minutes, giving them very 
little time to escape.
  It was heart-wrenching to see, and it was heartbreaking to think 
about the pain that the families will feel for years to come.
  Sadly, these accidents were not due to an enemy attack. They were due 
to training lapses and poor leadership, which was exacerbated by high 
demand of services, combined with lack of funding for needed ships and 
lack of training caused by defense cuts and sequestration.
  In some cases, we found out sailors are working 100 hours a week just 
to keep up with the training requirements and the current operations.
  Our men and women in uniform deserve better. We cannot expect our 
sons and daughters to volunteer for the military only for them to be 
placed in harm's way without the proper equipment or adequate training 
to ensure they return home to us safely.
  Congress must work to fix this problem. The 2-year budget agreement 
passed earlier this year increased the defense spending caps to allow 
our Nation's military to begin the rebuilding process. Congress took 
action for fiscal year 2018 by investing in critical military programs, 
such as increased funding for Navy ship and aircraft depot maintenance, 
providing an additional 24 F/A-18 Super Hornets to address the Navy's 
strike fighter shortage, and increased Active Duty end-strength for all 
the service branches.
  However, our work is far from over. It is vital that we pass on-time 
appropriations for fiscal year 2019. Our military cannot adequately 
restore readiness without on-time appropriations. It is our 
responsibility as Members of Congress to ensure that the Department of 
Defense receives appropriations for fiscal year 2019 by this October 1.
  The House has already passed our version of the Defense 
Appropriations bill, and I hope our colleagues in the Senate will act 
swiftly to ensure the Department of Defense is funded on time. We need 
their help to make this happen, and we owe it to our sailors and our 
servicemen everywhere.
  Time is running out. We have an opportunity to get this right, and I 
urge the Senate to act swiftly and quickly.
  Mr. TAYLOR. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Missouri, who 
is a strong, principled, conservative voice on the House Armed Services 
Committee and a huge supporter of our military and national security 
apparatus. I thank the gentlewoman for her service here and, of course, 
to our military, and for her good work.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bergman).
  Mr. BERGMAN. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague and my next-door 
office mate. The south wing of Cannon is well guarded.
  Of course, the third verse of the ``Marines' Hymn'' says that when 
all the rest of us get to heaven, they will find that the gates are 
guarded by United States marines. But I guarantee you, there are some 
snipers up there somewhere, making sure that the marines don't get 
taken from behind.
  We have a term, or had a term because I am no longer involved with 
the Pentagon on a direct basis, but while working there over a long 
period of time, there was a term called BLUF, B-L-U-F, bottom line up 
front. So the bottom line up front from my remarks today is that CRs, 
continuing resolutions, seriously inhibit and in some cases, prevent 
long-term planning, training, and readiness.
  We have a term that you will hear now used by the military on a daily 
basis: We have to be ready to fight tonight. That is not tonight next 
week. That is not tonight next month. That is right now and around the 
globe.

                              {time}  1800

  When you have a mission like the U.S. military does to protect not 
only our citizens here but those citizens in countries of our coalition 
partners around the world, we have to be able to fight tonight, and we 
have to be able to fight as a coalition force around the world. When 
you are not ready, you are not a good partner. Continuing resolutions 
consume time, they consume resources, and they increase the overall 
cost of warfighting.
  DOD's mission is to protect all of our citizens by successfully 
executing operational war plans. These operational plans change over 
time due to evolving threats. Continuing resolutions prevent DOD from 
maintaining momentum in keeping ahead of those changing threats. 
Warfighting is not like a sports team where you can go 18 and 1 for the 
season and still claim victory. That 1 has to always be in the zero 
column for our military.
  Training and readiness go hand in hand. The readiness comes in two 
forms: personnel readiness and equipment readiness. When you think 
about the time it takes to train a young soldier, sailor, airman, 
marine or coastguardsman, that can't be done overnight. Long-term 
planning goes into that individual training. That individual training 
morphs into unit training so that individual part of a unit is

[[Page H6166]]

ready to go and defend our Nation's interests at home and abroad.
  Equipment readiness is a challenge, because when you cannot plan long 
term for your buys of parts, whether they be for aircraft, ships, 
tanks, whatever it happens to be, again, your cost goes up.
  We have the responsibility as the Congress to give our Department of 
Defense and the Secretary of Defense the tools they need to keep our 
country safe. Continuing resolutions seriously hinder our capability to 
complete that mission.
  I strongly urge the Senate to act swiftly and come to the realization 
that a continuing resolution is not an answer going forward for the 
safety and security of our country, all of its citizens, our families, 
and our coalition partners who rely on us when times get in dire 
straits.
  So, Madam Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak with 
you tonight, and I just want to end with one real-time, real-life 
anecdote.
  Forty-six years ago yesterday, July 11, 1972, we saw the evidence of 
a successful evolving threat in Vietnam when the worst, most 
devastating helicopter shoot-down of the entire Vietnam war occurred. 
Sixty-two people perished in one CH-53 helicopter in the northern I 
Corps. We had not had the capability to adjust our tactics because the 
SA-7 missile had been introduced. That is how quickly life can change 
on the battlefield.
  We as the Congress need to do everything possible to ensure that that 
doesn't happen to our Nation's warriors.
  Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague not only for his service, but for 
his friendship.
  Mr. TAYLOR. Madam Speaker, I would certainly like to thank the 
gentleman, Congressman, general, and marine--marine nonetheless--for 
his fantastic service to this great Nation, both then and now, as a 
colleague, as a fellow veteran, and as a neighbor in the Cannon 
building on the south end there. I thank the gentleman for his service 
and his steadfast support of our military men and women.
  Madam Speaker, the regular use, as you have heard, of continuing 
resolutions impacts commanders at all levels. You have heard about more 
training deaths than combat deaths. I have to tell you at the service 
and major command levels, commanders are not allowed to start new 
programs, increase rates of production, or begin new military 
construction projects. As you move to lower echelons of command, it 
forces leaders into making risk determinations related to readiness and 
training.
  Consider, Madam Speaker, Oceana Naval Base. You heard the gentlewoman 
from Missouri talk about parts and maintenance and half of the Navy 
airplanes not being able to fly. Oceana Naval Base, which resides in my 
district, if it were a country, it would be the seventh largest 
airforce in the world.
  The Air Force Combat Command is also in my district. Flying hours for 
many of these units have been far below the needed hours for units 
prepping for combat deployments.
  As you heard, many of the aircraft are grounded because of 
maintenance and not being able to get to parts. It has taken years and 
will take years to recover. We are certainly not there yet.
  Air National Guardsmen who volunteer at the beginning of the year are 
only able to have orders cut for the duration of the continuing 
resolution if it happens. This sometimes reduces the level of their 
benefits, such as their basic housing allowance. They are eligible to 
receive less than that because the orders get broken into separate 
pieces.
  This really affects the ones at the lower rank, the enlisted, like 
what I was, those who may have military families. Again, hurting our 
military families which is the strong basis of structure for a strong 
force.
  Let me give you another example. While returning from a deployment, 
approximately 90 airmen had unanticipated changes in their itinerary 
which caused additional expenses to be incurred. Since these expenses 
were not authorized prior to the new fiscal year, these members were 
not reimbursed for more than 60 days after their return. Some of the 
unpaid expenses ranged from just a few dollars to $7,000 for one young 
airman.
  Imagine, Madam Speaker, if you are a young airman, E-3, E-4, and you 
have a family, $7,000 is a lot of money. It could be the difference 
between paying the mortgage and keeping the lights on back home, 
contributing to the stress of our military families.
  In the weekend of January 20, 2018, there was a scheduled training 
weekend. The expiration of the continuing resolution caused a last-
minute cancelation of an event impacting 950 airmen. Fifty of the 
airmen who traveled out of Langley Air Force base, also in my district, 
before the order was given to cancel were immediately sent home without 
accomplishing any training events. They may never be able to get that 
training back as they prepare to go to combat for this Nation.

  There are some other negative impacts that we don't hear about often. 
The Virginia National Guard is second contributing to the war effort 
amongst other guard units around the country. The Reserve components 
make up 47 percent of our Nation's operational forces, yet they are 
required to cease operations during a continuing resolution while 
Active Duty counterparts continue training. Forty-seven percent, Madam 
Speaker, of our operational forces have to shut down during continuing 
resolutions.
  Let me read a couple things that I got from the Virginia National 
Guard.
  During the most recent shutdown that happened, 3 days, was 
inaccurately reported in many media outlets as having minimal impact, 
to the contrary Virginia National Guard faced the following: They had 
last-minute notification of inactive duty training for 2,211 personnel, 
resulting in the absence of anticipated monthly income, which equated 
to 4 days of Active Duty pay.
  Notifications to more than 630 full-time soldiers and airmen that 
their potential employment would be temporarily terminated were sent 
out. That affects retention. $28,000 worth of contract actions were 
canceled, and a projected $7,500 in subsequent loss as a result of 
these cancelations.
  Missed training opportunities. During the most recent shutdown, the 
National Guard lost training opportunities totaled $7.7 million, 
affecting expected income for 58,000 soldiers and airmen and 37,000 
Federal technicians.
  Aside from those losses, that contributes to mission and morale 
impacts. Again, the Virginia National Guard is second in the Nation 
contributing to the war efforts, and the Reserve components make up 47 
percent of the Nation's operational forces.
  Madam Speaker, we have to do better for our military apparatus. I 
just want to reiterate to you that I have the great honor of 
representing the district with more military and veterans than any 
congressional district in the Nation. If there is anything going on in 
the world, if Mother Freedom needs to be defended anywhere in the 
world, then our men and women are there on the front-lines fighting for 
family, for friends, and for freedom.
  We in Congress and the Senate owe them better, and we have to do 
better. We have to get our acts together. We have to lead with the 
courage and the spirit that they have. We can make it happen, and we 
should push and push until we got it done.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________