[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 58 (Thursday, March 30, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H1683-H1685]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     MILITARY PAY MUST BE INCREASED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 9, 2023, the gentleman from California (Mr.  Mike Garcia) is 
recognized for the remainder of the hour as the designee of the 
majority leader.
  Mr. GARCIA of California. Madam Speaker, I thank my fellow naval 
aviator from Virginia for this precious time.
  Madam Speaker, today I rise as a formal naval officer who is 
concerned for our enlisted troops, and particularly our junior enlisted 
troops within the Department of Defense, the soldiers, the sailors, the 
airmen, the marines, the space guardians.
  As a massive government rolls forward spending more and more and 
gathering more and more debt, our enlisted troops continue to do the 
tough

[[Page H1684]]

work of providing Americans their security blanket.
  Just last night, we had nine Army soldiers killed in a tragic 
training accident in a Black Hawk helicopter in Kentucky. They make 
such great sacrifices on a daily basis, and our enlisted folks are 
doing this work for almost no compensation.
  When I reflect on just how little our junior enlisted ranks earn, I 
am left begging the question, Madam Speaker, who is providing them with 
their security? What lobbyist group is advocating for junior enlisted 
personnel, who when they first join the military are making about 
$23,000 a year?
  Madam Speaker, I know you are familiar with this, having served your 
country, but this is a pay table from the DOD for fiscal year 2023 
showing what our enlisted troops make, and you can see when they first 
join, they are actually making less than $21,000 a year. It is not 
until they are actually above an E-3 with E-4 rank over 4 years, 5 
years that they are actually above what we would consider minimum wage 
of $15 an hour, or $32,000 a year.
  It is about $11 per hour, what they are being paid right now for what 
would be a normal 40-hour work week. In California, fast-food workers 
start at $22 an hour. By the way, our troops, they are not usually 
working 40-hour work weeks. As you know, they are working 60 to 80 
hours per week, especially if they are on deployment.
  I ask our fellow Americans and legislators to let that sink in. Let 
it sink in that the starting wage of a McDonald's worker is twice that 
of the starting wage of our junior enlisted troops. The McDonald's 
worker, however, doesn't get his head shaved. He doesn't have some of 
his rights and freedoms taken away. The McDonald's worker doesn't go on 
deployments for 6 to 12 months at a time, and he doesn't put his life 
on the line for his beautiful country during both peace time and 
training operations. Twenty-two McDonald's workers a day don't take 
their own lives by suicide each day. $11 per hour, that is what we pay 
our troops.
  A third of our troops, Madam Speaker, qualify for food stamps. Even 
China is paying their enlisted troops more than we are.
  Madam Speaker, who is making sure that our enlisted troops are 
getting the resources that they need to provide for their family, not 
just the financial resources but food, safe housing, daycare, schools 
for their children, and jobs for their spouses? The DOD officers have 
an organization called MOAA, or the Military Officers Association of 
America.
  The Pentagon has their top brass that come to the Hill and testify 
asking to make sure that they get all the weapons they require to 
maintain the pointy edge of the spear, but the sad fact remains that 
the junior enlisted of our military remain largely unrepresented and 
without a champion.
  We wonder why we suffer from record-low recruitment, record-low 
retention. Today's retention problem is tomorrow's recruiting crisis. 
Pay and quality of life are the biggest drivers right now in our 
challenges to retention.
  Members of Congress--I have seen it for several years from both sides 
of the aisle--have stood at these very podiums, thumping their chests 
speaking about the 3 to 5 percent pay raises and they are taking care 
of our troops. They say we are taking care of our troops. These are 
record-high pay raises, they say. I guarantee you that is going to 
happen again over the next several months. We are taking care of our 
troops. We are giving them record-high pay.
  It is a bunch of crap.
  In the midst of 7 to 8 percent inflation, and when your base pay is 
only $22,000 a year, a 5 percent increase is only about $90 a month. 
That is easily swallowed up in your first trip to the gas station. 
Politicians can thump their chest and try to make themselves feel 
better about themselves, but don't stand here and tell us that you are 
taking care of the troops because for far too long the welfare of our 
enlisted troops has gone without a shepherd in Congress and without 
leadership in the Pentagon and without a true champion.

  There have been freebie talking points that are easy to see, but they 
are being masked by anemic and hollow actions from flag officers and 
politicians the same, and that ends now, Madam Speaker.
  Last year, my Military Spouse Licensing Relief Act passed both 
Chambers of Congress and was signed into law by the President in 
January. I am grateful for that. It helped about 140,000 Active-Duty 
families. This law requires all 50 States to recognize the professional 
licenses of Active-Duty spouses. If they are a nurse, a teacher, a real 
estate agent, cosmetologist, their licenses are now recognized across 
State lines when our Active-Duty families get orders to a new State.
  To our troops and their spouses throughout the Nation, if you are 
currently having any push back from credentialing boards or licensing 
boards in your State, wherever you are stationed, and they are not 
recognizing your license and you are the spouse of an Active-Duty 
member, please call my office. Work with your commanding officer, but 
call my office, and we will help you to make sure that your rights are 
adhered to and honored and that your license is honored, as well. This 
is the law of the land, and you have rights now in this regard.
  Madam Speaker, I am proud of that achievement from last session, but 
this session has to be focused on base pay, especially for our junior 
enlisted. I have introduced a bill that ensures that the DOD minimum 
base pay salary is $31,200. This figure gets an E-1 up to parity with 
every other industry in the Nation where $15 per hour is the generally 
accepted minimum wage. This $31,200 represents about a 50 percent 
increase to base pay for enlisted personnel. While that may sound high, 
we have to remember how low the starting point is.
  This will save us money by needing fewer recruitment bonuses and 
fewer retention bonuses after they join the military.
  Our Nation's most precious asset or our most potent weapon is our 
troops, the Active-Duty men and women in uniform and, specifically, the 
workhorses of our DOD forces, the enlisted personnel.
  We can have Stealth bombers, nuclear submarines, intercontinental 
ballistic missiles, sexy fighter jets, hypersonic weapons, and the most 
advanced satellites up in space, but on our current recruitment and 
retention trajectory, we will still lose a war against a peer threat 
like China. We will still lose a two-front war against near-peer 
adversaries.
  With the most lethal arsenal in the world, we are still not secure 
unless we take care of our troops. I will not stand at this podium or 
any other and feign support for big bills that provide small support 
for our troops. I won't do it. Our military, it begs for inspiration 
and for a mission. It craves leadership and it thrives on patriotism.
  Our enlisted troops, they will literally climb mountains, they will 
move mountains, and they will give their life in defense of our way of 
life, but they won't complain about their pay because they are noble 
warriors. They are humble warriors.
  As a Nation, we must reestablish our dominance on the global stage, a 
position, frankly, that we lost in the wake of the Afghanistan debacle.
  The gap between pay for our troops and their civilian counterparts 
right now is at an all-time high. All the while, China has closed the 
gap against the United States in several domains.
  We need some wins under our belt when it comes to national security 
and readiness and taking care of our troops. The men and women in fancy 
suits in this Chamber and the Chamber just 600 feet north of here, they 
need to do the right thing for our troops wearing the military 
uniforms, not in 5 years, not in 1 year, but this year.
  The Commander in Chief just 1.6 miles to the west should support us 
in this endeavor. I am willing to provide him the tools necessary to do 
it myself, if needed, but $31,000 is a doable do for base pay for our 
enlisted, and it is necessary.
  It is imperative that as we craft the National Defense Authorization 
Act, or the NDAA, and also write the defense appropriation bills, that 
we are adequately addressing the pay and the welfare of our troops and 
that we do so very soon this year.
  I commit to our enlisted personnel that I will remain your champion 
in

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Congress until we get this right. Your Nation has forgotten you and 
neglected you for too long, and that ends this year.
  God bless our troops.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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