[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 8400-8401]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I know my good friend, the Democratic 
leader, is frustrated that he is no longer setting the schedule in the 
Senate. He seems to differ with the order of priorities that we deal 
with things here. Yesterday, he said debating the Defense authorization 
bill was ``a waste of time''--a waste of time to debate the Defense 
authorization bill in a time of high crisis for our country.
  Nevertheless, a new majority sets the agenda of the schedule these 
days. Today, the Senate turns to the consideration of the National 
Defense Authorization Act for 2016--in June, not in December, at the 
end of the year, in a situation in which no amendments are allowed.
  This legislation, which authorizes funds and sets out policy for our 
military annually, is always important, but it is especially important 
now, given the multitude of threats that challenge us as a nation; for 
instance, the aggressive rise of ISIL, Iran's ambitions for regional 
hegemony and its accompanying quest for nuclear weapons, and both 
Chinese and Russian efforts to erode American influence and assert 
domination over their neighbors. It is also important, given the need 
to start thinking about preparing our armed services for the many 
global threats the next President will confront the day he or she takes 
office.
  The reality is we have left behind the era of when Americans could 
withdraw from conflict overseas and escape to the comfort and security 
provided by vast oceans and isolation. We have lost the luxury of 
building our forces years after a war has begun. Most important, the 
simple tradeoff of guns versus butter, drawing down our conventional 
forces, hollowing them out, and standing behind our nuclear arsenal 
does not suit the strategic challenges we now face. We can no longer 
ignore ungoverned spaces. We have left the Cold War long behind. 
Tradeoffs have become more difficult to accomplish, and they require 
greater strategic thought than the President has provided, and we have 
seen the resilience of the terrorist threat.
  Senator McCain, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, is a 
man with the depth of experience to understand the need to modernize, 
refit, and prepare our military for the threats and operations in the 
coming years. Thankfully, for the Senate, he is also a man with vision 
to craft a bill that could put us on a path to address those 
challenges--legislation that could help equip the next President with 
adequate capabilities to address threats from adversaries like Russia, 
China, ISIL, and Al Qaeda, not to mention the unforeseen challenges 
that inevitably arise. That is just the course this Defense 
authorization bill proposes to put us on--the correct course. I would 
like to commend Senator McCain, not just for crafting this bill but for 
working closely with Members of both parties to steer it through 
committee with overwhelming bipartisan support.
  This legislation proposes to do a lot of things, but fundamentally it 
is premised on a commonsense idea that we should cut waste and redirect 
that authorized funding to where it is actually needed--such as meeting 
the needs of the men and women who put everything on the line--
everything--to keep us safe.
  In a time when missions are in imbalance with resources for a 
military that has already had to endure too many cuts in recent years, 
it just makes sense to do things such as taking on a growing 
bureaucracy in the Pentagon to make it more efficient and effective, 
working toward reforming the way our military purchases weapons and 
equipment, and improving and modernizing the military retirement system 
in order to secure greater value and choice for servicemembers.
  Overall, this bill authorizes about $10 billion in savings for actual 
military needs. These authorities will allow for improvements in the 
training and capability of our forces, and they will help us develop 
new technologies to maintain superiority on the battlefield. Our 
constituents stand to benefit from many of the provisions in this bill 
as well.
  For instance, Kentuckians will be glad to know this legislation would 
authorize a new Special Forces facility at Fort Campbell. They will 
also be glad to hear it will authorize construction projects and an 
important new medical clinic at Fort Knox--an initiative I have 
championed literally for years.
  It is no wonder why so many Democrats joined Republicans to support 
this bill on the floor of the House of Representatives or why they 
joined Republicans in the Armed Services Committee to pass this bill on 
an overwhelming bipartisan basis, too, which of course is the 
tradition, both of that committee and of the Senate as a whole.
  Now we need to keep the momentum going because this defense policy 
bill cannot fall hostage to partisan politics. Too much is at stake.

[[Page 8401]]

  We just heard more partisan saber rattling from the White House 
yesterday, which is now threatening to block a pay raise for our troops 
unless Congress first agrees to spend billions more pumping up bloated 
bureaucracies like the IRS. That is despite the fact that the funding 
level in this bill is exactly--exactly--the same as what President 
Obama requested in his budget. Let me say that again. The funding level 
in this bill is exactly what President Obama requested in his budget--
$612 billion.
  As I said earlier, the Democratic leader appeared to go even further, 
essentially saying that voting to support the men and women who protect 
us is now ``just a waste of time.'' It is just a waste of time, 
according to the Democratic leader, to be debating the bill about the 
men and women who protect us. The assumption, I guess, is his party 
isn't getting its way on other partisan demands completely unrelated to 
the bill, so they want to punish the men and women of our military.
  Look, we understand that some of our Democratic friends might be so 
determined to increase spending for Washington's bureaucracies that to 
achieve it they would even risk support for our men and women in 
uniform in the face of so many global threats. I certainly don't love 
every aspect of the Budget Control Act, especially the effects we have 
seen on the defense side in hindering our ability to modernize the 
force and meet the demand of current operations. But to deny brave 
servicemembers the benefits they have earned putting everything on the 
line for each one of us, for these partisan reasons, would be 
profoundly unfair to our troops.
  Blocking this bill is not in the national interest. So let's skip the 
partisan games and start working toward commonsense reforms, as this 
bill proposes. Let's work together to pass the best Defense 
authorization bill possible.
  I urge Members of both parties who want to offer amendments to go 
ahead and do so and then work with the bill managers to get them 
moving. We have that opportunity this year because we returned to the 
regular order and because we are considering the NDAA at the 
appropriate time in the session, rather than at the very last minute 
with little time for thoughtful consideration of amendments, as had 
become the unfortunate norm under the previous majority. This positive 
turn is another credit to Senator McCain's leadership.
  Of course, no Defense authorization bill will ever be perfect, but 
this legislation reflects a good-faith effort to authorize programs in 
the political reality in which we live today. It is bipartisan reform 
legislation that proposes to root out waste, improve our military 
capabilities, support the brave Americans who protect us, and make 
preparations for challenges, both foreseeable and unforeseeable, in the 
years ahead.

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