[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 120 (Tuesday, July 17, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H6285-H6289]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




EXPRESSING SENSE OF THE HOUSE THAT THE NATION FACES A MORE COMPLEX AND 
  GRAVE SET OF THREATS THAN AT ANY TIME SINCE THE END OF WORLD WAR II

  Ms. CHENEY. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the 
resolution (H. Res. 995) expressing the sense of the House of 
Representatives that the Nation now faces a more complex and grave set 
of threats than at any time since the end of World War II, and that the 
lack of full, on-time funding related to defense activities puts 
servicemen and servicewomen at risk, harms national security, and aids 
the adversaries of the United States.
  The Clerk read the title of the resolution.
  The text of the resolution is as follows:

                              H. Res. 995

       Whereas the United States now faces a more complex set of 
     threats than at any time since the end of World War II;
       Whereas the National Defense Strategy released on January 
     19, 2018, highlights these threats and acknowledges a return 
     to great power competition;
       Whereas countries like Russia and China are heavily 
     investing in military modernization and developing 
     capabilities that the United States may not be able to defend 
     against while also expanding their influence across the 
     globe;
       Whereas North Korea's nuclear program continues to be a 
     serious threat;
       Whereas the National Defense Strategy states that ``Iran 
     continues to sow violence and remains the most significant 
     challenge to Middle East stability'';
       Whereas the National Defense Strategy states that 
     ``terrorist groups with long reach continue to murder the 
     innocent and threaten peace more broadly'';
       Whereas the United States continues to fight a war against 
     terrorism and has troops deployed in hostile regions 
     throughout the globe;
       Whereas, on January 19, 2018, Secretary of Defense James 
     Mattis stated, ``As hard as the last 16 years have been on 
     our military, 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, worsened by 
     us operating, 9 of the last 10 years, under continuing 
     resolutions, wasting copious amounts of precious taxpayer 
     dollars'';
       Whereas fiscal year 2009 was the last fiscal year the 
     Department of Defense received on-time funding;
       Whereas the House of Representatives has passed an annual 
     appropriation bill for the Department of Defense before the 
     start of the next fiscal year in each of those fiscal years;
       Whereas article I, section 8 of the Constitution gives 
     Congress the responsibility to ``provide for the common 
     Defence and general Welfare of the United States'' and calls 
     on Congress to ``raise and support Armies'' and ``provide and 
     maintain a Navy''; and
       Whereas Secretaries of Defense appointed by Presidents of 
     both parties have warned about the damage funding uncertainty 
     has on the readiness of our Armed Forces: Now, therefore, be 
     it
       Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of 
     Representatives that--
       (1) failing to provide our military with full, stable, and 
     on-time funding allows our adversaries to close critical 
     military capability gaps, putting our servicemembers at 
     increased risk, and severely harms our military's ability to 
     prepare for, deter, and, if needed, defend against these 
     capabilities, putting United States national security at 
     greater risk;
       (2) providing full, stable, and on-time funding for the 
     Department of Defense is critically necessary to preventing 
     these increased risks; and
       (3) the House of Representatives is committed to ending the 
     funding uncertainty for the Department of Defense and 
     providing the resources United States servicemembers need to 
     defend the Nation, and that the Senate should join the House 
     of Representatives in these efforts.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from 
Wyoming (Ms. Cheney) and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Smith) each 
will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Wyoming.


                             General Leave

  Ms. CHENEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and 
insert extraneous material on the resolution under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from Wyoming?
  There was no objection.
  Ms. CHENEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of my resolution, H. Res. 995, which 
expresses this House's commitment to providing the full, on-time 
funding our men and women in uniform need to defend our Nation.
  This week and next, Mr. Speaker, we will be spending time on this 
floor discussing the devastating impacts nine

[[Page H6286]]

consecutive continuing resolutions have had on our military's readiness 
and on our ability to deter and defend against our adversaries. Despite 
the fact that this House has consistently, and normally in a bipartisan 
fashion, completed our work on time, we have repeatedly seen partisan 
politics, particularly in the Senate, prevent the Congress from 
delivering a funding bill to the President's desk on time. In fact, 
since Republicans took control of the House in 2011, the House has 
never failed to pass a Defense Appropriations bill on time.
  Just a few weeks ago, we passed H.R. 6157, the Department of Defense 
Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2019, with an overwhelmingly 
bipartisan 359-49 vote.
  Today's resolution, Mr. Speaker, expresses the sense of this House 
that failing to provide full, on-time, stable funding increases the 
risk to our servicemembers and aids our adversaries. The resolution 
expresses our commitment to ending the funding uncertainty our military 
faces and urges the Senate to similarly complete its work so we can 
provide the on-time funding our armed services require.
  Mr. Speaker, we must stop forcing our men and women in uniform and 
their families to pay the price for our dysfunction.
  Today, Mr. Speaker, we will consider three resolutions.
  H. Res. 995, which I have introduced, acknowledges the unprecedented 
global threat environment we face and the negative impact these 
continuing resolutions have had on our military's ability to confront 
this environment and deter and, if necessary, defeat our enemies.
  We will also consider H. Res. 994, offered by my colleague and fellow 
member of the Armed Services Committee, Mr. Gallagher from Wisconsin. 
Mr. Gallagher is a marine with two deployments to Al Anbar province in 
Iraq. His resolution details the negative impact of CRs and funding 
instability on the readiness of the U.S Marine Corps.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, we will consider H. Res. 998, offered by Mr. 
Wittman of Virginia, chairman of the Seapower and Projection Forces 
Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee. Mr. Wittman's 
resolution lays out the damage that the CRs and unpredictable funding 
have done to the United States Navy.
  Next week, Mr. Speaker, we will consider resolutions addressing the 
impact of unstable funding on the United States Air Force and the 
United States Army.
  We know, Mr. Speaker, that not every Member of this body is on one of 
the defense-related committees, but we also know that every Member of 
this body is committed to the security of our Nation. I take the 
opportunity today, along with my colleagues, to lay out in detail the 
threats we face and the impacts our actions in this House can have on 
our military's ability to keep us safe.
  Reflecting on the challenges facing our Armed Forces, Secretary 
Mattis put it this way: ``As hard as the last 16 years have been on our 
military, 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, worsened by us operating 9 out of the last 10 
years under continuing resolutions.''
  Secretary Mattis went on to explain the consequences of Congress' 
failure to provide reliable, on-time, sufficient funding: ``Ships will 
not receive the required maintenance to put to sea; the ships already 
at sea will be extended outside of port; aircraft will remain on the 
ground, their pilots not at the sharpest edge; and eventually 
ammunition, training, and manpower will not be sufficient to deter 
war.'' Not sufficient to defer war, Mr. Speaker.
  No experience, Mr. Speaker, has had a greater impact on me during my 
time as a Member of this body than having the Secretary of Defense 
testify in front of us as members of the Armed Services Committee and 
say that congressional abrogation of our constitutional duty to fund 
our military is putting our servicemembers at greater risk.
  While our military has suffered under this burden of continuing 
resolutions and dangerous policies of our previous administration, our 
adversaries have been making steady gains. Never before in recent 
history have we seen the gap between our capabilities and those of our 
adversaries widen at such a breathtaking pace--and not in our favor, 
Mr. Speaker.
  China is pursuing an aggressive strategy to overtake our military and 
economic advantage globally. They are developing technologies that are 
specifically targeted to diminish our ability to project our force. 
They are developing weapons systems against which we may not be able to 
defend.

                              {time}  1415

  They have utilized deficiencies in our current CFIUS process to 
attempt to acquire critical U.S. technology. Chinese companies like 
Huawei and ZTE have made significant efforts to embed themselves in the 
United States, putting our telecommunications networks and, 
potentially, our defense supply chain at risk.
  Militarily, economically, in cyberspace, in space, on land, in air, 
and at sea, the Chinese have made clear their objective is to achieve 
global preeminence, which means they must attempt to displace us.
  The Russians continue to modernize their nuclear arsenal, as they 
violate their commitments to us under the INF Treaty. They, too, are 
developing advanced and threatening weapons systems and attempting to 
exercise their hegemonic ambitions across Europe. They have violated 
the borders and sovereignty of their neighbors. In the words of the 
National Defense Strategy, they are making efforts ``to shatter the 
North Atlantic Treaty Organization and use emerging technologies to 
discredit and subvert democratic processes in Georgia, Crimea, and 
eastern Ukraine.'' They have attempted to subvert our own democratic 
processes, as we saw in last week's indictment of 12 members of the 
GRU, Russian military intelligence.
  We have seen in Russia and China a return to great power competition, 
and 8 years of Obama-era policies facilitated these developments. At 
the same time, we continue to face significant threats from rogue 
regimes like Iran and North Korea.
  The Iranians benefited tremendously from the payments they received 
from the Obama administration, over $1.5 billion, when they entered 
into the Obama nuclear deal. This deal paved the way for a nuclear-
armed Iran with no real verification provisions, no complete disclosure 
of their past activity, no cessation of their enrichment activity, and 
it lifted restrictions on their ballistic missile program.
  President Trump was right to withdraw from this disastrous deal, but 
we are still living with the consequences of an emboldened Iran, 
enriched with U.S. taxpayer dollars and a pathway to a nuclear weapon. 
Their support for terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah has grown, 
while they continue to pose an existential threat to the State of 
Israel.
  The North Koreans, similarly, continue to pose a serious threat, Mr. 
Speaker, with an arsenal of nuclear weapons, an ongoing ballistic 
missile program, and continued pursuit of biological and chemical 
weapons.
  Despite recent success on the battlefield against ISIS, radical 
Islamic terrorism continues to pose a threat to our Nation. We have got 
troops deployed today, Mr. Speaker, around the globe in the fight 
against terrorism.
  As we face all of these threats, we are also living through an era of 
increasingly rapid technological development. The very nature of 
warfare is changing. The ability and the agility required to 
successfully respond to these threats requires funding sufficiency and 
certainty.
  Mr. Speaker, that certainty simply cannot be provided through 
continuous continuing resolutions. In the face of all these threats, 
Mr. Speaker, we in this body must resolve not to add to the risk our 
troops are facing. We must resolve to fulfill our constitutional duty 
and provide sufficient, on-time, reliable funding.
  It took many years for the readiness, manpower, and training crises 
we face to develop. We in this House and in the Senate must be part of 
the solution today and for many days and years into the future.
  In closing, Mr. Speaker, I would like to read something that the 
Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral John Richardson, said before the 
House Armed

[[Page H6287]]

Services Committee last year in a hearing about the damage of 
continuing resolutions:
  ``I have a hard time believing,'' he said, ``that I am sitting before 
you now to discuss the potential that we might take steps to make our 
sailors' missions more difficult, to give our adversaries more 
advantage. . . . `'
  Think about that, Mr. Speaker. That is what this debate is about. 
That is what this resolution is about. Insufficient, unreliable funding 
gives our adversaries an advantage. We must not be part of that any 
longer. We must resolve to get our work done on time, in the House and 
in the Senate, and to fulfill our constitutional obligation.
  We must, in this Congress, Mr. Speaker, be worthy of the sacrifices 
our men and women in uniform make for us every day.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge the adoption of this resolution, and I reserve 
the balance of my time.
  Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I 
may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, to begin with, the resolution that is presented before 
us is 100 percent accurate, and I completely agree with it.
  We have had uncertain funding for going on almost 8 years now for the 
Department of Defense. It has been a series of continuing resolutions, 
two government shutdowns, multiple threatened government shutdowns, and 
an unbelievable amount of uncertainty. From one month to the next, the 
Pentagon does not know how much money they have to spend. That 
uncertainty, without a doubt, has undermined our ability to provide an 
adequate national security for this country.
  So I agree with the maker of this motion that budget certainty would 
help enormously in terms of preparing our national security--well, 
preparing the men and women in our Armed Forces to face the threats 
that are in front of us. Beyond that, there was a lot said in the 
opening remarks there that I don't quite agree with.
  Also, it is really important to sort of understand the context. Why 
are we in this situation? Why do we have budget uncertainty year after 
year?
  I don't agree that it is simple incompetence or Congress just isn't 
feeling like doing its job. We have deep-seated differences of opinion 
about where to spend our money, and also, we have no fiscal policy as a 
country.
  Well, that is not true, actually. Our fiscal policy is really rather 
clear. We want a balanced budget; we want tax cuts; and we don't want 
to cut spending.

  Everything you need to know about why we have this problem can be 
contained in three votes that the United States House of 
Representatives took over the course of about a 4-month period. As I 
tell you about these three votes, I want you to know that 134 
Republican Members of Congress voted for all three of these things.
  Number one, a roughly $2 trillion tax cut. Number two, a budget deal 
that increased spending by $500 billion. Some of that was for defense; 
a lot of it wasn't. Then, in the ultimate irony, a week later, those 
134 Members of Congress, Republican Members of Congress, voted for a 
constitutional amendment to balance the budget. They want to cut taxes 
by $2 trillion; they want to increase spending by $500 billion; and 
they want a balanced budget.
  And, oh, by the way, we are roughly $22 trillion in debt and running 
up a deficit that is projected to go up over $1 trillion going forward. 
That is not a responsible fiscal policy.
  Now, I serve on the Armed Services Committee with all of my 
colleagues who are here today, and I hear the same things that 
Congresswoman Cheney hears about how our military is suffering under 
the uncertainty.
  The readiness crisis is 100 percent real. It is getting better as we 
have gotten some funding the last couple years, but it is still a major 
challenge. But the reason for all of that is because of decisions that 
are made on the front end. You can't cut taxes by $2 trillion--after, 
by the way, over the course of the 15 years prior, we had already cut 
them by multiple trillion dollars--and then stand up and say DOD 
doesn't have enough money. You cut revenue and then complained that you 
don't have enough revenue. It doesn't really make sense.
  The second point that I would make is it is not just the Department 
of Defense that is suffering under budget uncertainty. There are a 
whole bunch of different examples. I won't go into all of them, but the 
entire discretionary budget suffers under this uncertainty. And one big 
chunk of the discretionary budget is infrastructure, the bridges and 
roads and airports and a whole bunch of other things that basically 
enable our economy to function, which generates revenue and helps pay 
for things like national security.
  Also, we have got bridges collapsing all over the country. There are, 
literally, United States citizens who have died as a result of our lack 
of investment in infrastructure.
  So it is not just the Department of Defense. If we are going to 
address the uncertainty, if we are going to address the problems with 
dealing with our national security strategy, we have to address fiscal 
policy.
  For going on 8 years now, we have been having this conversation in 
the Armed Services Committee, and most times my Republican colleagues 
sternly rebuke me for raising issues that are supposedly not directly 
related to the Armed Services, saying: We are the Armed Services 
Committee. We are not here to talk about the debt or the deficit or 
infrastructure or any of that other stuff.
  Well, it all goes together, and what we as a congressional body have 
to do is come up with a plan that actually makes sense, that actually 
there is money for. If we do that, then we can have the stability for 
the Department of Defense.
  Now, I will tell you, if we are $22 trillion in debt--and the deficit 
is projected to be pretty close to $1 trillion this year and quickly 
north of $1 trillion going forward--we are going to have to deal with 
that problem or there is not going to be as much money as we'd like for 
defense or infrastructure or education--or anything, for that matter.
  So we have to address the fiscal irresponsibility of our budgeting 
process across the very long period of time, and certainly we can't 
keep cutting taxes.
  Now, as far as what does that National Security Strategy look like, 
as was described, we face an incredibly complex threat environment. I 
agree with that.
  I don't agree that getting rid of the Iran nuclear deal so that Iran 
can pursue nuclear weapons with absolutely no inhibition whatsoever is 
a step forward in the right direction, nor do I agree that sitting down 
with Kim Jong-un and agreeing, basically, to back off of a whole bunch 
of things and getting nothing in return--I know that, in the 
President's mind, North Korea is denuclearized, but they are not. They 
haven't taken a single, solitary step in that direction.
  Lastly, the final point I want to make is the complex threat 
environment that we face is extraordinarily difficult. I will tell you 
one thing of which I am 100 percent confident. There is no way that, on 
our own, the United States of America can confront that threat 
environment.
  We need allies. We need friends. We need countries that are willing 
to work with us to meet the national security threats that we face, 
which is why the trip that the President just took is so troubling. He 
spent the first part of it telling our allies, basically--sorry, I 
can't say that on the floor--just saying that he didn't need them, 
insulting them over and over and over again, allies that we are really 
going to need to meet the threats not just from Russia, but China, the 
terrorism threat that was described.
  Our NATO allies are going to be crucially important to that, and the 
President, at one point, said he's not even sure why we are in NATO, 
insulted the EU and insulted all of our allies, and then turned right 
around and sided with Vladimir Putin against our intelligence 
communities, against our Justice Department, on the subject of Russian 
interference in our election.
  So, in a complex threat environment, you don't want to make it easier 
for a country like Russia that threatens us and make it more difficult 
for countries ranging from Canada to Germany to Great Britain, who 
actually want to work with us, to meet that threat environment. So, on 
that point, we need more allies, and we certainly don't need to take 
the side of a dictator who

[[Page H6288]]

is threatening our country over our own intelligence agencies. That is 
not in the best interest of national security.

  Overall, we have to have a fiscal policy. We can have the argument 
about the defense budget all we want, but if we keep cutting taxes and 
have no policy whatsoever to get our budget even close to under 
control, we are not going to have the money to spend on our national 
security needs or other things.
  Now, I will close it out with this. General Mattis, Secretary Mattis, 
likes to say, ``We can afford survival.'' That is a nice phrase. 
Unfortunately, it is a little bit unclear on what it means because, 
what do you have to spend to survive? By and large, DOD doesn't engage 
in that sort of black-and-white way of looking at it: We spend this 
money, we survive; we don't spend this money, we die.
  What they do, and what they've said over and over again, is they 
manage risk: If we don't spend the money here, that increases the risk 
by this amount.
  I think that is a better way of looking at it. It is not a matter of 
whether or not we can afford survival, because we don't know exactly 
what China is going to do or Russia or any of these other folks are 
going to do or how we are going to manage it. It is a matter of 
managing risk.
  It is very true that, if we continue to have an uncertain defense 
budget--heck, I would submit, if we continue to have an uncertain 
fiscal policy and an uncertain infrastructure budget, we are increasing 
the risk of our country's ability not so much to survive but to prosper 
and live in a peaceful world.
  So this resolution is fine. It is horribly insufficient to actually 
give us the certainty and predictability in our budget that we need. To 
get there, we need to honestly address the fiscal challenges that our 
Nation faces and come up with a coherent fiscal policy that takes into 
account all the needs of our country in a balanced and coherent way so 
that we manage those risks in the best way possible and in the best 
interests of the American people.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. CHENEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, 
and just want to say I enjoy very much the opportunity to serve with my 
colleague, Mr. Smith, on the Armed Services Committee, and I appreciate 
his support for this important resolution.

                              {time}  1430

  We disagree on several points. I know that Mr. Smith knows that the 
defense budget is not what is driving the debt in this country. I don't 
disagree that we need a fiscal policy and that we have got to address 
our fiscal concerns, but it is also the case that we have the votes, 
that we have the ability, as we have done in this House and as they 
could do in the Senate.
  We saw, in the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Defense 
Appropriations bill passed out 30-1. So it is a bipartisan bill that we 
ought to pass. We passed it across this floor. We ought to pass it 
across the Senate floor. We ought to get it to the President's desk so 
that he can sign it, instead of being in a situation where we are 
holding it hostage to a whole range of other issues and concerns.
  Mr. Smith and I do have big disagreements. You know, to talk about 
somehow that the tax cuts are impacting the Defense budget ignores the 
history of the fact that the Defense budget was being strangled when 
Barack Obama was in office. And as far as I know, nobody is accusing 
President Obama of cutting taxes too much.
  So the challenge that our military is facing and the challenge of 
reliable sufficient funding isn't directly tied to tax policy. I think 
what we have got to do is decouple these things.
  If we don't get the funding for the military right, as Mr. Smith 
said--you know, Secretary Mattis has said we can afford survival. 
Another way to say that is if we don't get this right, nothing else we 
do will matter. And the situation is so serious and so significant that 
if we let ourselves one more time go down the path of holding this 
funding hostage to other concerns and other issues, basically holding 
our men and women in uniform hostage, I would submit that we are not 
doing our job, and we are not fulfilling our constitutional obligation.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. 
Byrne), my colleague from the Rules Committee and from the Armed 
Services Committee.
  Mr. BYRNE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 995.
  As many of us have stood on this floor and said, We have planes that 
can't fly, ships that can't sail, and troops that can't deploy.
  Under the Obama administration, we saw an alarming trend where we 
allowed our Armed Forces to be hollowed out, and we allowed a critical 
readiness crisis to develop.
  Over the last 2 years, members of the House Armed Services Committee 
and others have fought tirelessly to ensure our military gets the level 
of funding they need, not only to fix our current readiness crisis but 
also to build up our force to a size to match the current threat 
environment, which is the most complex one we have faced since World 
War II.
  While I am proud of the work we have done so far to raise the top 
line Defense number, there is another critical piece to the puzzle. 
Continuing resolutions are just as detrimental to our national security 
as the Budget Control Act caps. Every day we don't pass the Defense 
Appropriations bill, we are denying resources to our servicemembers and 
making it harder for them to do their job.
  Continuing resolutions and budgetary uncertainty also end up costing 
the taxpayers more money. The Secretary of the Navy has said that the 
Department of Navy alone wasted $4 billion since 2011 because of 
continuing resolutions. That is $4 billion of real money that could 
have been used to fund more ships, more planes, or more maintenance.
  Under a continuing resolution, the Department of Defense and the 
services are not allowed to enter into any new contracts. Every year we 
have delayed the timelines of scheduled maintenance availabilities and 
procurement schedules. All of these things are crucial to maintain 
deployment rotation and ensure the U.S. presence is felt around the 
world.
  Compare this to your personal finances. For half the year you are 
able only to pay your current expenses, like car payments and 
utilities. You know you will get money later in the year for new things 
you want to buy or invest in; however, you don't know how much you will 
get or whether you will get it. Does that sound frustrating and 
ineffective?
  We have the world's greatest military. Yet, we are hamstringing them 
with an irresponsible funding cycle. Let me put this in very blunt 
terms. The inability of Congress to pass government funding bills on 
time has endangered the health, safety, and lives of our 
servicemembers. Just look at the aviation accidents and recent 
collisions of Navy ships. These incidents can be blamed, at least in 
part, on the readiness crisis.
  As Members of Congress, we have a responsibility here. We are not the 
ones on the front lines and deployed around the world, but we play an 
integral role: getting those servicemembers their funding on time.
  In a time where we face great power competition with Russia and 
China, radical Islamic extremism in the Middle East, and Iran and North 
Korea, there is no shortage of national security priorities.
  Here, in the House, we have passed our Defense funding bill on time 
yet again, but we need our colleagues in the Senate to follow suit. I 
know it is a priority for my Alabama colleague, Senate Appropriations 
Chairman Richard Shelby, to get our military funded, so I hope we can 
do our job responsibly and on time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Ms. CHENEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the 
gentleman from Alabama.
  Mr. BYRNE. Mr. Speaker, let's not let petty political games get in 
the way of funding our Nation's military, protecting our 
servicemembers, and ensuring the safety and security of the American 
people. Let's pass this resolution and demonstrate our strong 
commitment to passing a Defense funding bill before the end of the 
fiscal year.
  Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I 
may consume

[[Page H6289]]

  Mr. Speaker, just a couple of quick points. The Department of Defense 
budget is 18 percent of the overall Federal budget, and you would be a 
pretty bad businessperson if you looked at your books and said that a 
thing that takes 18 percent of the budget has nothing do with the 
deficit. It all adds up piece by piece. It absolutely is a big part of 
what contributes to us having a deficit and a debt, so we cannot ignore 
what we spend on Defense and how it impacts everything else.
  Now, you can make that policy decision that, you know, defense is 
just so much more important than infrastructure or healthcare or 
education or Social Security or Medicare or whatever, but to say that 
it doesn't impact the debt and the deficit is not, well, fiscally 
accurate.
  And second, as far as tax cuts are concerned, yes, President Obama 
cut taxes repeatedly and by way, way too much and contributed to this 
problem. Most notably was in 2012 with the permanent extension of all 
of the Bush tax cuts. So, we did that, and then with the stimulus 
package back in 2009, there was about a $400 billion tax cut.
  We have repeatedly, in this Congress--and I didn't vote for any of 
that. We have repeatedly in this Congress prioritized tax cuts over the 
men and women who serve in the military. That is what I find so ironic. 
We hear all these complaints about how we are underfunding the 
military, the complaints about readiness, and what the gentleman from 
Alabama said, when he talked about the impact that this is having on 
the men and women who serve, he is absolutely right. The continuing 
resolutions are devastating to the way we try to function within the 
Department of Defense.
  I will again submit that they are also devastating to every other 
aspect of our discretionary budget, and that should not be ignored. But 
to cut taxes by trillions upon trillions of dollars and then look up 
and say, Gosh, how come we don't have enough revenue to fund our 
defense is hypocritical.
  All I am asking is: Make a choice. If, in fact, we need to spend the 
amount of money on DOD that you are all saying we are, then let's raise 
the revenue and pay for it, okay. That is fine. That is a choice. But 
to both say, we are going to give away massive tax cuts primarily to 
the wealthiest people in this country, who, by the way, have been doing 
quite well for quite some time, and then come up and say, Gosh, it is 
just so irresponsible that we are not funding defense, that is not 
consistent and it is not a fiscal policy.
  And, again, I will come back to the fact that this is all very well 
and good. I mean, what all these resolutions are saying is if we could 
just pass the Defense Appropriations bill, then everything would be 
fine. We have a $4 trillion plus budget. We have multiple layers of 
problems here. If we do not address the underlying fiscal issues that 
we are facing that I have described, then the men and women who serve 
in our military will face the brutal uncertainty that is very 
accurately described by my Republican colleagues over and over and over 
again.
  We have to address the underlying issue, not just come out and make 
empty statements about how we want to support our men and women in the 
military after putting in place a budget and a tax policy that makes it 
next to impossible to do that. We have to deal with the issue up front 
so that we are in a position to actually provide what my colleagues 
have said we need to provide.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Ms. CHENEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, again, I appreciate very much my colleague's support for 
this important resolution. I look forward to having his support as we 
go forward on these resolutions that lay out very clearly how important 
it is to fund our men and women in uniform.
  He and I have very serious and significant disagreements over tax 
policy. I believe--I know that the private sector is the engine of 
growth in this economy; that tax cuts, in fact, generate economic 
growth, and economic growth generates revenue; that if you really want 
to deal with the debt in this Nation, then you have got to generate 
additional revenue.
  The way to do that is not by taxing people more. It is by letting 
people keep more of what they earn so they in fact can reinvest so we 
can see the kind of economic growth we need.
  But I would say my colleague's focus on that issue today points out 
the problem that we have been facing. We face a number of critically 
important challenges in this body and in the United States Senate, but 
we have got to ensure that we don't hold our men and women in uniform 
hostage while we deal with those other issues.
  We are, today, not at a time when we have got an international 
environment that is one in which we can feel safe in our predominance, 
in which we can feel safe in our ability to continue to project our 
power. We are in one where the threat to us is growing, and it is 
significant.
  When you have got servicemen and -women, when you have got service 
chiefs, when you have got the Secretary of Defense telling us things 
like: our adversaries have weapons systems we might not be able to 
defend against, that policies and budget processes and votes that are 
undertaken in this body are increasing the risk to our men and women in 
uniform, those are things we have got to pay attention to. And I would 
say we have an obligation to pay attention to those things that is 
higher than any other obligation that we have.
  We have to commit, Mr. Speaker, to fulfilling that constitutional 
obligation to providing full and on time funding for our troops.
  And, Mr. Speaker, I would like to close today with something that 
General Dunford said in his testimony before the House Armed Services 
Committee earlier this year. He said: ``The Joint Force must continue 
to receive sufficient, sustained, and predictable funding for the 
foreseeable future to restore our competitive advantage and ensure we 
never send our sons and daughters into a fair fight.''
  Every single time we have to deploy our forces, Mr. Speaker, we must 
ensure that they have everything they need to prevail.
  Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of the resolution. I urge a 
continued focus on completing the Defense funding process on time and 
getting the bill to the President's desk.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentlewoman from Wyoming (Ms. Cheney) that the House suspend the rules 
and agree to the resolution, H. Res. 995.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the 
rules were suspended and the resolution was agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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