[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Page 12004]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              DEFENSE CUTS

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in 
the Record a piece from Politico by my colleagues in the House, 
Chairman Forbes, Chairman Turner, Congressman Bishop, and Congressman 
Conaway.
  I fundamentally disagree with the President when he said in a recent 
interview with NPR:

       A lot of the spending cuts that we're making should be 
     around areas like defense spending as opposed to food stamps.

  I wish the President would listen to the advice of Secretary Gates, 
who said in his AEI speech this May:

       I revisit this history because it leads to an important 
     point for the future: when it comes to our military 
     modernization accounts, the proverbial ``low hanging 
     fruit''--those weapons and other programs considered most 
     questionable--have not only been plucked, they have been 
     stomped on and crushed. What remains are much-needed 
     capabilities--relating to air superiority and mobility, long-
     range strike, nuclear deterrence, maritime access, space and 
     cyber warfare, ground forces, intelligence, surveillance and 
     reconnaissance--that our nation's civilian and military 
     leadership deem absolutely critical.

  My colleagues in the House are absolutely right when they wrote:

       The time to draw a line in the sand, and go on the offense 
     to support national security must be now.

  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                     [From Politico, July 25, 2011]

                    On the Offense Over Defense Cuts

 (By Representatives J. Randy Forbes, Michael Turner, Rob Bishop, and 
                             Mike Conaway)

       America's all-volunteer military is the most well-trained, 
     well-equipped fighting force the world has ever seen. But the 
     strength of our armed forces should not be taken for granted.
       Without sustained investments in our troops and their 
     equipment, the military power our nation now wields in 
     defense of our security--including our economic security--
     will slowly be hollowed out. The result is likely to be an 
     America that can go fewer places and do fewer things in 
     defense of its global interests.
       While that may sound good to those who remain uncomfortable 
     with America's leadership role in the world, starving the 
     military will not make us any safer, given the global demands 
     on our security interests.
       The U.S. military confronts readiness shortfalls and a 
     growing array of risks and security challenges. That is why I 
     am deeply concerned about the avalanche of military spending 
     cuts being discussed--from President Barack Obama's $400 
     billion proposal to the Senate's Gang of Six proposal that 
     could cut up to $886 billion.
       The time to draw a line in the sand, and go on the offense 
     to support national security must be now.
       Let's be clear: Defense spending is not what put us in this 
     position, and gutting the defense budget to pay the bills is 
     unlikely to get us out of it. As a percentage of our gross 
     domestic product, the defense budget remains just 3.6 
     percent. This figure is low by all historical standards.
       Even if we start slashing major portions of the budget--say 
     $50 billion each year over the next decade--that figure would 
     still only add up to a fraction of the nation's debt. Yet the 
     additional risk to the nation could be substantial.
       Today's military is worn out from a decade of operations 
     that have pushed already aging platforms to the edge. More 
     than half the Navy's deployed aircraft are not fully combat 
     ready, as we recently discovered at a House Armed Services 
     Readiness Subcommittee hearing, and approximately one in five 
     of our Navy ships are deemed unsatisfactory or mission 
     degraded.
       With known shortfalls in the Navy maintenance accounts, the 
     Defense Department would be severely challenged to meet the 
     expected service life of its equipment. Even more concerning 
     are the assessments from our Combatant Commanders in the 
     unclassified portion of the Quarterly Readiness Report to 
     Congress. This paints a distressing picture of a military 
     stretched thin by nearly 10 years of war and a sustained lack 
     of resources.
       Even as our forces have been aged rapidly by the high tempo 
     of operations in the past decade, the president has cancelled 
     a generation of weapons programs in just the last two years. 
     While much of the nation has smart phones and iPads, the Army 
     is still operating on an Atari-like system.
       With readiness shortfalls and pressure to modernize aging 
     platforms, how can we pretend we can defend the country with 
     even more defense cuts? Our national defense planning must be 
     based on an open and objective review of the threats we face 
     and the resources required to meet them. Unfortunately, we 
     now have that process in reverse.
       In many ways, it's like a family who is about to purchase a 
     new home. The correct course would be to have an inspector 
     look at the house and tell the family what the problems are 
     and what they will cost to fix. What if, instead, that family 
     told the inspector that they only had $1,000, and they wanted 
     the inspector to go through and identify only $1,000 worth of 
     problems to fix?
       This is analogous to the way the Defense Department and the 
     Obama administration expect Congress to approach national 
     defense. They dictate how much we will spend on defense 
     without fully and objectively detailing the risks we face, or 
     the choices we must make.
       This wouldn't be a sensible course for the new homeowners. 
     So why does it pass as acceptable for managing our national 
     security?
       In the past two years, the administration has executed two 
     rounds of defense cuts, with the masthead of another likely 
     on the way as part of an agreement to lift the debt ceiling. 
     With growing readiness problems and a generation of military 
     modernization either cut or on the chopping-block, we are now 
     facing a $400-$900 billion defense cut looming over the 
     horizon.
       While our armed forces are charged with defending our 
     national security, it is the Congress' responsibility to 
     provide them with the resources to accomplish the tasks we 
     set for them. Our men and woman in uniform diligently execute 
     these tasks.
       It is time for the Congress to do its job and provide 
     adequately for the common defense.

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