[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 129 (Tuesday, July 30, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5175-S5177]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019
Madam President, I am here to speak about some other good news, which
is that we have an opportunity with a vote that is coming up. Some
people call it the budget vote or the budget agreement. I don't refer
to it as such. I call it a defense agreement. I think everybody knows
where I stand on this. This is a vote that is going to have to come up
before too long, and there is a unique group of people in the U.S.
Senate who know the reason that we have to pass the defense budget.
They are the members of the Senate's Committee on Armed Services. It
happens that I chair that committee and that we have done really great
work.
I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for such time
as I may consume.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, we had a situation in which we went
through an 8-year period of time when our military was somewhat
devastated, and I want to share some of the specifics of that because
it is a serious thing. We are going to be voting on the defense budget
agreement, and I have already stated where I stand on it. I am here to
outline why the budget agreement is necessary for our national defense.
This defense budget agreement will be able to focus on the Senate's
Armed Services' top priorities, one of which is to fix the on-base
privatization of military housing.
Remember that this happened about 6 months ago. We discovered, all of
a sudden, that we were not doing a good job on our privatized housing.
Hey, I have to admit that I am partly responsible for that because I
was around here when we decided to privatize the housing. It did work
for a while. I think, after a period of time, people got a little
careless, and there was a little slack. Some of the contractors who
made that commitment got a little bit greedy. This information as to
how bad the conditions were came from a person at Tinker Air Force Base
who was the spouse of a military person. When I first heard this, I
thought there were bad conditions just in my State of Oklahoma, but
there were not; they were all over the Nation.
So we fixed that thing. We fixed it with our defense authorization
bill, and we had a lot of provisions in there. We are now modernizing
our military housing in a way that is going to be good for all of our
spouses and others who are forced to live there. For some reason, if
our defense budget agreement were to go down in flames and not be
passed, there wouldn't be the modernizing of our military or the giving
to our troops a well-deserved pay raise, and they have not had a pay
raise in a long time. This is going to be the largest pay raise for our
military people in the last 10 years. It is a good thing.
By the way, people are always talking about how we can be so
concerned about building our military when we have China and Russia
that have passed us up in many areas and spend just a fraction of the
amount. The reason is very simple, which is that China and Russia are
countries that don't have to do anything for their soldiers. We take
care of ours. We try to provide good housing. We provide the types of
things that our all-volunteer force can be very proud of and are very
proud of. That is something we have to incur. The largest single
expenditure that we have in the military is end strength--the people
out there. Communist countries--China, Russia--don't have to worry
about that. ``Here is a gun. Go out and kill somebody.'' We don't have
that luxury, and we wouldn't do that if we wanted to.
If we don't pass this budget bill, the effects on the military will
be devastating. Let me just share a couple of things that would happen.
We would force the Department of Defense to operate under a
continuing resolution, which would shortchange our troops and waste
taxpayer dollars. We all know that. We would face destructive,
haphazard cuts in sequestration. What is it we hear on our committee?
The Presiding Officer is fully familiar, for she is one of the most
loyal members of the Senate's Committee on Armed Services. We have
posture hearings for about 6 months at the beginning of every year with
the leaders of the various branches of the military--General Votel,
Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, ADM Craig Faller, ADM Phil Davidson, all of
these people.
What do they tell us?
They tell us, if we don't actually start funding our military again,
we are going to have sequestration. Look, if we vote for this thing and
pass it, we will end the sequestration problems and threats forever. It
will not happen again.
What else do they tell us?
They tell us that a CR, which is a continuing resolution, would be an
absolute disaster. A lot of people in this body don't know this, but
every member of the Senate's Committee on Armed Services does know this
because they were there.
All of these people--16 leaders--come in for posture hearings each
year, and we know the problems we are having and the problems we are
confronted with. We would be faced with cuts in sequestration.
This document right here is the ``Assessment and Recommendations of
the National Defense Strategy Commission.'' Here it is right here. This
is our blueprint of what we are doing to save America and to put us
back on top in all of these areas in which we are deficient. If, for
some reason, we don't pass this defense budget agreement, then we will
not be able to continue the implementation of the national defense
strategy, and we all know that. Certainly, we don't all know that, but
the members of the Senate's Committee on Armed Services do know that.
So that is what would happen. But what would this mean? The members
of the Armed Services Committee know what it means, but for everybody
else, the deficit budget deal would end the threat of sequestration
forever. You don't need me to tell you that sequestration would be
devastating.
General Milley, just confirmed to be the Chairman of the Joints Chief
of Staff, said that the levels of funding caused by sequestration would
place America ``at great risk.''
Remember, unfortunately, Heather Wilson, the former Air Force
Secretary who had to leave her position. She said the cuts would be
``absolutely devastating in scope and scale.''
If we were hit by sequestration, there would be an across-the-board
cut of $71 billion to the defense programs. That would halt our
progress on the Space Command and developing crucial capabilities like
hypersonic weapons and artificial intelligence. Those are two areas
where we have actually been passed up by both Russia and China.
Just yesterday, the DARPA announced that they have completed a
successful design review of a hypersonic weapons program. Now, that is
a good first step. I am really glad because we were way ahead of them
back before the last administration came into office, and then, all of
a sudden, over that period of time, we got behind. So, meanwhile, China
and Russia are already testing their hypersonic weapons, and they are
ahead of us. We are just trying to catch up, and that is what this
budget vote is all about.
The 2020 NDAA invests in hypersonic weapons, but we can't move
forward if we are hit by sequestration. It would mean it would set us
even further behind.
[[Page S5176]]
By the way, the hypersonics that we are talking about are the state
of the art. That is a new thing. That is a weaponry that moves at five
times the speed of sound, and here we are, allowing our--I don't want
to characterize China and Russia as enemies. They are not enemies, but
they are certainly on the other side, and people are in shock when they
find out that they have something that we don't have. We have to be
competitive with them, and we are going to be if we pass this defense
budget vote that we are going to have before us.
So another example, in our NDAA that we passed overwhelmingly just
last month, it authorized a 3.1-percent pay raise, or increase, for our
troops. They deserve that pay raise, and under sequestration that pay
raise is at risk.
The ability for basing facilities to receive the next generation of
aircraft is also at risk. If your State is like my State, your State is
slated to house the F-35 or the T-X trainer or the KC-46. The KC-46 is
a system that is going to replace the KC-135, which has been in place
now for over 50 years and so is 50 years old. That is a system, and if
you were going to have one of these systems in your State, you may not
get it because of this deal. Without the budget vote that is going to
take place, we wouldn't be able to move forward with our plan, and we
would be hit by sequestration. It could all be over.
I am talking about systems like the F-35, which we talk about every
day, and the T-X trainer. We have had the trainers in existence now for
some 50 years, and the KC-46, the same thing.
So, anyway, that is what would happen if for some reason we vote
against and don't pass the defense bill that we are going to be asked
to vote on probably tomorrow.
We have also made plans to continue increasing our end strength by
17,000 troops from the Obama era to our current goal, and without this
defense budget deal, that wouldn't be possible. I think we all know it.
Now, maybe we don't all know it in this Chamber, but as for every
member of the defense authorization committee, the Senate Armed
Services Committee, they all know because they have been told over and
over, and that is why it is so important that they be very responsible
in their vote.
It would be kind of hard to say that you are working for the defense
of our Nation and then turn around and vote to gut their funding.
Now, we have made remarkable gains in readiness over the past couple
of years, thanks to President Trump's leadership and greater budgetary
stability. For just one example, at the end of the Obama
administration, only 5 percent of our brigade combat teams were ready
to what they call ``fight tonight''--only 5 percent.
Now, we have made a huge improvement. That is up to 50 percent now
after just 2 years of this administration, but we have a lot more to
do. All the improvements we have made in fiscal years 2018 and 2019
would be at risk if we were not able to go forward and pass our defense
budget act that we are going to be asked to support.
Sequestration would undo what we have done and take us back where we
were before. It would be abandoning our troops right when we said we
would be there for them. A continuing resolution means funding will go
to the wrong places--places that were important last year but don't
need to be funded this year. That is just wasteful. We all understand
that, but a continuing resolution would be especially devastating for
the military.
Every one of these military people whom I was just reading about came
in for their annual meeting. They all said the same thing: It would be
devastating if we had to go into a continuing resolution. We would be
forced to do programs that otherwise we would not be doing.
So General Dunford said it himself. He said: ``The fact that we have
routinely not had a budget at the beginning of the year has delayed new
starts, and it's been incredibly inefficient in how we prioritize and
allocate resources throughout the year.'' That was General Dunford.
A continuing resolution means that our military will lose key
planning ability. David Norquist, nominated to be the Deputy Secretary
of Defense, gave a great example to the Senate Armed Services Committee
last week. He said: Let's say a unit is planning right now for some
training in October, but we are operating under a continuing
resolution. At that time, they will cancel training because they don't
know how much money they would be getting in order to accomplish that.
We may eventually get more money, but in the meantime we will have lost
a month in the process.
With sequestration off the table and with a stable 2-year budget deal
in place, the Department of Defense can move forward with what is
really important: implementing the National Defense Strategy. This is
what my committee has been focusing on all year. We are facing a
different, more dangerous world than we were 10 years ago.
I look back wistfully. I have said this many times. I look back
wistfully at the days of the Cold War. We had two super powers. We knew
what they had, and they knew what we had--mutually assured destruction.
It doesn't mean anything anymore. You have countries that are run by
people that are mentally deficient having the capability of blowing up
one of our American cities. It is a scary world out there. That is what
we are doing. That is why it is so important that we pass this budget,
because our defense is depending on it.
Not everybody knows this, but the members of the Armed Services
Committee do know it. We are falling behind China and Russia as they
continue to build their militaries. We are seeing persistent threats
from North Korea, from Iran, from the terrorist groups, and we no
longer have the best of everything, and most people don't understand
that. Of course the members of our committee do understand that.
We have set clear priorities, and now we need to fund it. The future
of our Nation is at stake. This is what it will take to regain the
qualitative and quantitative advantages that we have lost.
I would have liked to have seen even more funding provided to this.
The National Defense Strategy Commission--by the way, they set up a
system that they can use, and that system is that we should be putting
together between a 3- and a 5-percent increase over inflation, but we
have not done it. We have not done it even with the budget that we are
working on now.
The National Defense Strategy Commission, which is nonpartisan, has
said that 3 to 5 percent growth is what is needed, and that is what we
did not do.
But at the end of the day, I am willing to take this smaller than
ideal increase and give our military what it needs--predictability. It
is also more than what the House passed in their Defense authorization
bill, which was dangerously low.
Every member of Armed Services Committee should vote for this defense
budget because they know everything we have been talking about. They
know that we are outranged and outgunned in artillery. They know that
we are at a disadvantage in air defense, having only two Active-Duty
battalions. Nuclear Triad modernization has not been taking place. We
aren't there. China and Russia are.
So, anyway, what I am trying to impress upon you is that those
individuals who are members of the committee are fully aware of the
problems we have had. They remember that under the Obama
administration, at the end of the Obama administration, our Air Force
was short 2,000 pilots, and 1,500 of them were fighter pilots. Only
one-third of our brigade combat teams, one-fourth of our aviation
brigades, and half of our divisions were ready. Also, 60 percent of our
F-18s weren't flyable. This is what we are in the process of
correcting, and it is all dependent upon the passage of this budget.
So I would say to those individuals who are on the committee, I can't
imagine that any of them would not be supporting this defense budget
when it comes up, and I would hope that we don't have members of our
committee who are anticipating doing things such as hearings back in
their State or amendments to go as we put our Defense authorization
bill through the next steps, because now is when our defense system
needs to have this budget passed.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
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Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business for 15 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.