[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 8857-8860]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           AMENDMENT NO. 1521

  Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I rise today to support amendment No. 
1521, which would limit the use of overseas contingency operations, or 
OCO, funds. I am proud to be a cosponsor of this amendment, which was 
filed by the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, 
Senator Jack Reed.
  I wish to start by thanking Senator McCain and Senator Reed for their 
leadership in producing the underlining bill. Drafting the National 
Defense Authorization Act, NDAA, is no small task, and I support many 
important provisions included in the bill. As Ranking Member of the 
Seapower Subcommittee, I worked with Chairman Wicker to include 
provisions that will

[[Page 8858]]

strengthen and support our Navy and Marine Corps.
  Every Defense bill presents challenges and tradeoffs. There are 
competing priorities and compromises. For 52 consecutive years, both 
Chambers have debated the details and come up with a product that 
supports and enhances our national security. However, this year's bill 
presents more than just a difference over details. The overall 
framework of this bill is a problem. Before us is a bill that presents 
a serious question about our national values--a question that the Reed 
amendment would help to answer.
  Earlier this year, the Republicans pushed through a budget 
resolution. That resolution clearly set forth the framework that 
Chairman McCain had to work within. That framework basically said: We 
are not going to address sequestration in a meaningful way. Instead, we 
are only going to provide sequester relief for the defense budget. I 
note that this budget resolution passed the Senate without a single 
Democratic vote. I ask my colleagues to join me in objecting to an 
approach that bifurcates sequester relief as though our country's 
national security lies only with the Department of Defense, because 
that is what this NDAA bill does. How? The bill before us takes $38 
billion out of the base budget at the Department of Defense and moves 
it into the OCO budget. The OCO budget is not subject to Budget Control 
Act caps. The reason for this is that OCO funds are intended to support 
the unknown unknowns that arise during our security operations abroad. 
Using the OCO account to fund noncontingency items is irresponsible. It 
is a 1-year fix, and it adds to our budget deficit. It is not fair to 
our commanders on the ground, who have told us that we need to fix 
sequester permanently so they can prepare for the long term. Using the 
OCO account to shield the DOD from sequester has been called a gimmick 
by many.
  I am for a strong national defense. However, the foundation of our 
military strength is the strength of our economy. It is the strength of 
our communities. It is the strength of our future. Failing to fix 
sequestration for both defense and nondefense will undermine the 
strength of our national defense. Again, our national security is not 
just tied to our military strength. There are other national security 
initiatives that are not funded by the Department of Defense. For 
example, we have the State Department, the FBI, Homeland Security, the 
Coast Guard, and other law enforcement agencies and programs that are 
all important components of our national security. None of these 
programs is funded by the Department of Defense.
  In addition, the Department of Defense has said that fewer than one 
in four Americans in the eligible age range are qualified to enlist in 
the Armed Services. This is due to a variety of reasons, including 
health, obesity, fitness, mental aptitude, et cetera. Cutting funding 
to nutrition programs, education initiatives, preventative health 
measures, and fitness programs will result in even fewer individuals 
qualifying for our Armed Services. By not fixing both the military and 
domestic sides of the budget, we are undermining the foundation of our 
security and our future.
  America is one country, and the decisions we make in Congress should 
reflect that reality. We need to eliminate the sequester because these 
across-the-board cuts hurt our middle-class families, our small 
businesses, our military, and our national security. We need to 
eliminate the sequester--period. To continue to be bound by mindless, 
across-the-board cuts to both our defense and domestic budgets--cuts 
that were never supposed to become reality--is pure folly. Congress 
should come together in a spirit of bipartisan cooperation to fix 
sequester.
  This proposal by Senator Reed just fences the $38 billion in OCO 
funds until Congress comes together to do just that. It doesn't take 
the funding out of the budget. But it does prevent spending it before 
relief from Budget Control Act cuts are achieved on both the defense 
and domestic sides.
  I urge my colleagues to support the Reed amendment to provide for a 
responsible defense budget.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Flake). The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, are we in morning business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I have always said that being a 
superpower means more than super military might. It means super 
diplomacy. It would contain restraint and super fiscal responsibility. 
All of these are part of being a superpower.
  Admiral Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 
once said that the greatest threat to our national security is our 
debt--not another nation, not another army, not the fear of terrorism, 
but basically our debt.
  The United States has and will continue to have the greatest military 
in the world. But in order to remain the most powerful, we have to get 
our financial house in order. I think we all agree to that, but we 
don't seem to be practicing it very much.
  I fully support Senator Reed's amendment to basically fence the OCO 
funding.
  If we look to see how we have gotten ourselves into the situation we 
have now, it is not Democrat or Republican. It is our fault, and it is 
our responsibility to fix it. Basically, we have had two wars in 
Afghanistan and Iraq that we didn't fund. We did it through accounting 
procedures, emergency procedures, and contingency funds. Now we 
continue to expand upon that, if we go down this route without fixing 
it with Senator Reed's amendment.
  Ensuring the safety of the American people does not mean increasing 
defense spending to fund never-ending wars in the Middle East while 
ignoring nondefense programs that are also crucial to our national 
security. I have said this over and over. If we thought money and 
military might could fix that part of the world, the United States of 
America would have done it by now.
  For years, critical nondefense programs, such as the Department of 
Homeland Security and the State Department, have been forced to absorb 
damaging across-the-board cuts. They are also extremely important in 
safeguarding the homeland.
  While we continue to keep in place the budget cuts for these 
agencies, we have underhandedly gone around spending limits and 
improperly increased war funding. The most recent gimmick we are 
talking about, which has been explained, is an attempt to transfer 
roughly $39 billion from the base budget to the OCO budget to increase 
funding for overseas conflict. I have said time and again that after a 
decade of war in the Middle East, costing more than $1.6 trillion, does 
anyone believe we haven't done our part and tried? If money and might 
could have changed it, we would have done it by now.
  What is more important is that we are denying the funding from other 
important programs that desperately need these funds to keep our 
country stable, safe, and secure. In order to be truly secure, we need 
our non-Department of Defense departments and agencies to be able to 
function at full capacity also. The Pentagon simply cannot meet the 
complex set of national security challenges without the help of other 
government departments and agencies. We are all in this together. We 
are all responsible to protect this country. But we are all responsible 
to make sure that we can properly ensure that people have the 
opportunity to take care of themselves also.
  Retired Marine Corps General Mattis said: ``If you don't fund the 
State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition.'' He might 
have said that in jest, but I think underlying it he really meant it. 
And last week showed how vulnerable our networks are to cyber attacks 
from foreign nations and those who wish us harm.
  We have had a cyber bill before us for many years now. We have been 
told on an almost weekly or monthly basis of the threat we face from 
all different countries trying to hack in to do us harm. Yet we haven't 
been able to

[[Page 8859]]

move because of the toxic political atmosphere we have here.
  Our national security is also inherently tied to our economic 
security. Failures to invest in programs such as STEM education and 
infrastructure projects are short sighted. Failing to provide BCA cap 
relief to non-DOD departments and agencies would also shortchange our 
veterans who receive employment services, transition assistance, and 
housing/homeless support through other agencies such as the Department 
of Labor. The bottom line is that we need to get our long-term budget 
that reduces the deficit in line. Increasing the OCO money, as the bill 
does right now, only hurts that goal and makes it much more difficult 
and elusive.
  Defense budgeting needs to be based on our long-term military 
strategy, which requires the Department of Defense to focus at least 5 
years into the future. This is only a 1-year plan. Do we think it is 
not going to be extended and extended and extended? Do we think we are 
going to start it and stop it in 1 year? I don't think so.
  The fiscally responsible approach we need to take is to fix the BCA 
caps. We are hearing about the whole issue of sequestration and how 
horrible it is. Well, let me tell you how you can fix it: Sit down and 
put together a budget that is realistic and makes our long-term 
financial plans solid. That is all it takes. Yet we are unwilling to do 
it. We are just condemning it. We are condemning it because it 
constrains how we want to do business, which means not being held 
accountable or responsible. That is all.
  Every meeting I go to, whether it is nondiscretion or military 
spending--we all need more to expand programs. Yet we never take the 
GAO's report. The General Accountability Office says we could save $300 
billion to $400 billion a year if we could just get rid of the waste 
and the redundancies that go on, and we are not doing anything about 
that.
  I say again that our national debt is not a Democratic problem or a 
Republican problem. It is our problem. We all own this one.
  In 2008, our country faced one of the worst financial crises in our 
Nation's history. We added $1 trillion to our debt--on top of the 
trillions of dollars already spent on two costly wars and the Bush tax 
cuts, which President Obama basically extended twice.
  Between the wars, the tax cuts, the recession, and our out-of-control 
spending, our Nation's debt has exploded from $5 trillion to $18 
trillion. Currently, our deficits are decreasing, from $1.4 trillion in 
2009 down to a little under one-half billion dollars, according to the 
CBO, and it is expected to remain stable for the next couple of years.
  The bad news is that after 2017, if we don't change our ways, the 
deficits are projected to increase over $1 trillion a year through 
2025. Unless Congress can put aside partisan politics and put the 
country on a fiscally sustainable path, we will add over $7.5 trillion 
to our debt in the next 10 years. That is adding $7.5 trillion to $18 
trillion of debt we have right now. There is no way the next generation 
and the generation after will ever be able to dig out of this hole if 
we don't fix it now. But we have to be smart about how we reduce 
spending.
  As we saw in the 2013 sequestration, indiscriminate, across-the-board 
cuts harmed bad and good programs alike, did nothing to reduce waste 
and abuse, and caused individuals to be furloughed and lose their jobs.
  I have always said this: When you start cutting, you don't cut, 
basically, the items that continue to make progress for you. When the 
IRS doesn't do its job and it is incapable of doing it--the revenues 
owed to this country and the taxes that people should be paying--we 
can't cut back on that and expect it to be solid.
  I have pushed hard for a bipartisan compromise that would reduce 
spending, fix our broken tax system, and reform entitlement programs in 
order to reduce our debt and provide the economy with certainty and 
stability.
  For instance, we could enact $2.5 trillion in deficit reduction over 
the next 10 years if we just follow the Simpson-Bowles recommendations. 
It is an all-encompassing approach that raises revenue and promotes 
growth through comprehensive tax reform that brings our Tax Code into 
the modern age--increasing efficiency and simplifying the process for 
both individuals and businesses.
  Additionally, the plan enacts serious entitlement reform and makes 
additional targeted spending cuts aimed at long-term deficit reduction 
so that we can encourage economic growth. It is crucial that we make 
the necessary reforms that will make this Nation a better place for 
future generations.
  With that being said, I again express my support for Senator Reed's 
amendment to the defense budget that would block any additional 
unnecessary, unaudited spending for a continual war effort where we 
have no oversight. We were elected to basically look at the process we 
have.
  I ask unanimous consent for an extra 2 minutes, if I could, to 
finish.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MANCHIN. With that being said, Mr. President, all I am saying is 
that we should be smart and learn from our past and the experiences we 
have had. It has not worked well for us right now, and we can change 
it. We are the only ones who can change it.
  This country has a strong economy. It could be even stronger if we 
work together. The bottom line is we want to be smart. We want to be 
smart about where we invest our money and where we send our troops and 
put Americans in harm's way. We want to be smart in the domestic 
investments we make here in this country. We want to make sure they are 
working. If they are not working, then, you know what, do not be afraid 
to say: I tried and it did not work. I am going to try something 
different.
  Basically, if you have two programs doing the same thing, 
consolidate. Let's start looking for ways that we can run this country 
the way each American is expected to run their life. Every small 
business or large business is expected to make prudent investments and 
work efficiently. That is all we have asked for. This type of spending, 
basically unaccountable, will lead us down the path to increase the 
debt and does not make us any more secure and gets us involved in 
places where we do not have any oversight or any input.
  I do not--I do not--as a U.S. Senator wish to walk away from my 
responsibilities to make recommendations for what I think would be best 
for not only the West Virginia people, whom I represent, but for this 
entire country, which I love.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I voted against the Budget Control Act as 
a Member of the House of Representatives because I did not think it was 
a responsible course for our country. To me, ``sequestration'' is just 
a fancy term for mindless budget cuts. Unfortunately, sequestration 
became law and the mandated across-the-board spending cuts went into 
effect in March of 2013.
  I have been fighting to completely eliminate sequestration through a 
balanced approach to Federal spending and changes to our Tax Code to 
reduce our budget deficit. That is why I am very disappointed that the 
Defense authorization bill we are considering today uses a budget 
gimmick to end sequestration cuts for defense spending but continues to 
impose mandatory cuts for critical domestic priorities, such as 
education, health care, and medical research.
  This legislation transfers nearly $40 billion in defense spending to 
a glorified slush fund called the overseas contingency operations 
account, OCO account, as a way to avoid triggering sequestration cuts. 
Let's be clear. OCO really stands for ``open checkbook operation'' for 
our budget, and it stands for ``outrageous copout'' by the GOP.
  Instead of cutting funding for defense, Republicans choose instead to 
cut programs for the defenseless. This is not responsible budgeting; it 
is a cynical game. The majority is attempting to avoid its 
responsibilities under

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sequestration that they themselves demanded be enacted into law just a 
few years ago. Instead, we get $40 billion in additional spending for 
the Pentagon and $36 billion in cuts to food stamps, Head Start, 
preventive health care, and critical social programs.
  This is what the game is all about. Sequestration is now being 
dishonored. They believe they have found an exit ramp for the Defense 
Department for the cuts that they had accepted as a party--the 
Republicans--would be imposed if the Democrats would accept in equal 
measure cuts in social programs. That is the deal, a sword of Damocles 
hanging over both programs, defense and nondefense--that is civilian 
and domestic programs--to force us as an institution to work together 
in a responsible fashion. That was the deal with sequestration. That 
was the point of it. It was to force us to work together. Instead, the 
Republicans want an exit ramp for the Defense Department out of the 
sequestration program while allowing the social programs for the poor, 
for the sick, and for the elderly to stay inside of these cuts that 
occur under a sword of Damocles on an automatic basis.
  We are endangering our ability to teach our kids the skills they will 
need for the jobs of the future. We are making it harder for poor 
families in Massachusetts and across the country to put food on the 
table. We are jeopardizing the health of grandma and grandpa.
  And what are we really protecting when we mandate these cuts for 
critical social programs but not for our defense spending? We are 
protecting America's nuclear arsenal budget of $50 billion a year that 
is filled with waste and can be cut significantly without harming our 
national security. We spend more money on nuclear weapons than all 
other countries combined. This is the epitome of overkill. Can we find 
anything in the nuclear weapons budget that could be cut? Absolutely 
not, say the Republicans. We have to increase that budget. How are we 
going to pay for it? We are going to pay for it from poor children, 
from the elderly in our country.
  We spend more money on nuclear weapons just because the Defense 
Department and the military contractors want them. That is why I have 
introduced legislation with Jeff Merkley, Bernie Sanders, and Al 
Franken called the SANE Act, the Smarter Approach to Nuclear 
Expenditures Act. It would cut $100 billion over the next 10 years from 
our bloated nuclear weapons budget.
  It is time to stop funding a nuclear weapons budget that threatens to 
undermine our long-term economic security. We should be funding 
education, not annihilation. We should be helping people find jobs, not 
helping to build new nuclear weapons. We should be curing diseases, not 
creating new instruments of death.
  Even within our own budget, the Department of Defense should be 
prioritizing higher pay for marines, not more Minutemen missiles. 
Somewhere, Dr. Strangelove is smiling from the grave while millions of 
American families struggle to meet the daily budget they have to 
balance.
  I am a cosponsor of the Reed amendment to stop any increase in this 
so-called OCO account until the Budget Control Act caps for both 
defense and nondefense spending are lifted equally.
  For those who say the cuts to defense spending endanger our security, 
I say we face a very real type of economic security threat here at 
home. Millions of seniors worry about an end to Medicare and Medicaid. 
Millions of students need help to pay for college. Millions of American 
workers cannot make ends meet on the minimum wage.
  I support the Reed amendment. That will keep America truly safe, 
healthy, and secure.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. MARKEY. I yield the floor.

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