[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 204 (Tuesday, December 12, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5907-S5908]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   National Defense Authorization Act

  Mr. TESTER. Mr. President, this is supposed to be the greatest 
deliberative body on earth. This body is supposed to be a body that 
works for the American people and exemplifies what the greatest Nation 
in the world should exemplify and lead in that vein.
  I rise today to highlight that we are not living up to expectations. 
I want to highlight the very real consequences of this body's failure 
to deliver a Defense appropriations bill that would provide urgently 
needed resources to our men and women in uniform and keep this country 
safe.
  As most folks know, I am a farmer. We are getting winter underway, 
and I am planning for what I am going to plant next spring in the 
fields. I will tell you that when spring planting time comes, I will 
have to do that job. And I will work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to 
get that job done. Because if I don't, I lose the farm--literally. If I 
don't tend to business, I go broke.
  I want you to take a look at this body. We should have had a Defense 
bill, Defense appropriations bill, done the end of September, 3 months 
ago. And instead, we did a continuing resolution, then we did another 
continuing resolution, then we did another continuing resolution--keep 
kicking the can down the road. And the result of that is uncertainty, 
and the result of uncertainty is putting this country at risk.
  By the way, what I do on the farm is what people do every day in 
their businesses. And folks who go to work, they don't throw in the 
towel at any moment in time because they can't. They have to stick 
around. They have to get the job done. We need to follow our 
constituents' lead.
  I serve as chairman of the Senate committee that works on that 
military appropriations. I have been working with Republicans and 
Democrats for months to make sure that we have an appropriations bill 
that invests in the United States of America; that makes sure we stay 
ahead of our pacing threat, China; that we defend our country from 
foreign adversaries; and we take care of our servicemembers and their 
families.
  That Defense Appropriations Committee came together, and we produced 
a strong, bipartisan appropriations bill in the Senate that meets the 
needs of our military. That bill passed through committee months ago. 
In fact, it passed back in July by a vote of 27 to 1. Of course, it was 
a bipartisan vote.
  What that bill did was it included a 5.2-percent pay raise for our 
troops; it significantly ramped up production of made-in-America 
defense systems; it modernized our nuclear weapons programs; it 
accelerated investments in modernization to make sure that we, the 
United States of America, stays ahead of the countries that want to 
harm us and threaten our way of life.
  Let me be frank. This bill should have been passed by the House and 
the Senate back in September. If that had been done, we would not be 
talking here in the middle of December about taking up a bill in 
February to keep this country safe.
  Instead, we lurch from one potential shutdown to another potential 
shutdown.
  Right now, the military is running under last year's budget, a 
continuing resolution that expires on February 2. Now I am hearing a 
number of folks talking about the fact that we do not need an 
appropriations bill for this year; that we will just run off the old 
bill. Quite frankly, it is stupid, and it is dangerous. Let me give you 
the consequences of continued inaction because they are serious.

[[Page S5908]]

  Failure to deliver an appropriations budget for our defense emboldens 
our foreign adversaries--that is a given--and we are already seeing 
that play out before our eyes. After the horrific attacks of October 7, 
carried out by Hamas, the Defense Department ordered an additional 
aircraft carrier strike group, air defenses, fighter jets, and troops 
to the Middle East to prevent this conflict from spiraling into a 
regional war. But because of this body's dysfunction of not being able 
to deliver a defense appropriations bill on time, the Pentagon has no 
money to pay for this bill. As we speak, our Defense Department is 
hunting for literally hundreds of millions of dollars to cover these 
costs, and it is pulling money away from other critical operations.
  It also leaves our men and women in uniform without the certainty and 
the resources they need to protect our freedoms both abroad and here at 
home. In my case, it is the brave air men and women serving at 
Montana's very own Malmstrom Air Force Base. The men and women of the 
341st Missile Wing operate our ICBM missile fleet. These missiles are 
over 30 years old and need to be replaced. The silos that they sit in 
are over 60 years old. They need to be replaced, but without that 
appropriations bill, this program will continue to be delayed because 
of our dysfunction.
  Folks, the American military is being weakened across the air, land, 
and sea because we are failing to provide the predictability of the 
delivery of assets. For anybody who has ever been in business, you know 
that predictability is critically important. Without predictability, 
your chance of losing profits is huge. Well, we are talking about a 
little different thing here. We are talking about the defense budget, 
and without predictability, we are talking about some 300 programs that 
are going to be impacted because they don't know where the money is 
going to come from.
  They can't get started on assembly lines or ramp up production on 
already approved contracts because there isn't the money to pay for 
them because we haven't passed our defense budget. That includes things 
like helicopters. It includes things like B-21 bombers and F-35 fighter 
jets. It is causing a nearly $10 billion reduction in our shipbuilding 
programs, halting the construction of new ships and the maintenance of 
our current fleet, and delaying the completion of already approved 
Virginia-class submarines. These delays make this country a less safe 
country.
  It is another blow to our already challenging recruitment and 
retention efforts. By the way, I might add, with the exception of the 
Marines, every branch of the service needs more people in our volunteer 
military, but because we haven't passed a defense appropriations bill, 
we are, once again, putting manpower at risk. Joint Chiefs Chairman 
C.Q. Brown noted that a yearlong continuing resolution would create a 
$5.8 billion shortfall in military personnel funding. These are the 
folks whom we send all over the world--to horrible places--to protect 
freedom. This is a $5.8 billion shortfall.
  Quite frankly, what does that say for the folks who want to sign up 
for the military, for those folks who want to volunteer and dedicate 
their lives to keeping this country safe?
  They look at Congress and look at the job we are doing, and they say: 
Why the hell would I want to do that?
  And we wonder why our end-strength numbers aren't where they need to 
be.
  It is a slap in the face to our Nation's veterans--the fact that we 
can't get a defense appropriations bill done. Why? Because these 
veterans are relying on this body to deliver a defense appropriations 
bill that will strengthen TRICARE so that they can get the quality 
healthcare that they have earned.
  But maybe the most disturbing thing about all of this--that we can't 
get a defense appropriations bill or any appropriations bill done, I 
might add, in a timely manner--is that some will say: Well, we are 
going to save money.
  That is a joke. This whole charade is going to cost money. It is 
going to waste taxpayer dollars. We know the longer it takes you to buy 
something, the more it is going to cost. They know, when you shut down 
production lines, it costs money to start those production lines back 
up, and without money, that is exactly what has to happen.
  Look, I could go on and on about the damage that a continuing 
resolution--an extension of last year's budget, a budget that was 
created when we had no idea of the threats that would be going on now--
would do. The fact of the matter is that this Congress isn't doing its 
job. The greatest deliberative body isn't doing what it needs to do. 
And what is more important? What is a more important job for us than to 
keep our country safe? We wonder why our approval numbers are in the 
toilet. I can tell you. It is because of garbage like this--and it is 
garbage. They are tired of folks coming back to Washington, DC, and 
losing track of where they come from.
  My point is just like on the farm. We need to stay here weekends, 
vote nights, and work as hard as we can to get this done because enough 
is enough. We need to get these bipartisan bills done so that we can 
keep this country the greatest country on Earth.