[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 139 (Tuesday, August 21, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Page S5777]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

  SA 3861. Mr. COTTON submitted an amendment intended to be proposed to 
amendment SA 3695 proposed by Mr. Shelby to the bill H.R. 6157, making 
appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending 
September 30, 2019, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on 
the table; as follows:

       At the appropriate place in title VIII of division A, 
     insert the following:
       Sec. ___.  It is the sense of the Senate that--
       (1) the impending cut of $71,000,000,000 to the national 
     defense budget for fiscal year 2020 would have a disastrous 
     impact on military readiness and would force the Department 
     of Defense to choose between abandoning investments in weapon 
     systems and making significant cuts to military personnel;
       (2) to avert this disaster, Congress must immediately begin 
     negotiating budget levels for national defense for fiscal 
     years 2020 and 2021 that provide funding levels necessary to 
     maintain technological advancements as well as current troop 
     levels;
       (3) the longer Congress waits to give budget certainty to 
     the Department for fiscal years 2020 and 2021, the more 
     taxpayer money will be wasted through delays on strategic 
     decisions and critical programs; and
       (4) Secretary of Defense James Mattis rightfully condemned 
     these destructive cuts when he testified before Congress that 
     ``[n]o enemy in the field has done more to harm the 
     warfighting readiness of our military than sequestration''.
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