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




                   NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT

  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I rise to give my overall support for the 
content of the Defense authorization bill, but my considerable concern 
and, therefore, my ``no'' vote on final passage in the Committee on 
Armed Services was because the bill, as crafted by the majority in the 
committee, is a travesty, using an artificial budget to authorize the 
necessary operations and troop readiness of our military establishment.
  Now, that is what the bill does. It is an artificial budget. That may 
not sound particularly offensive, particularly when as a policy bill 
there are many good things in this Defense bill; things such as 
providing for the increase of our military services; things such as 
certain weapons systems that are authorized.
  Historically, this bill has been recognized as being bipartisan, and 
it addresses the problems posed by an increasingly dangerous world. The 
Defense authorization bill has historically provided the military with 
the resources our Nation needs. But the ranking Democrat, the Senator 
from Rhode Island, and I are compelled to oppose this bill because it 
addresses these problems with an artificial budget that treats an 
essential part of our military, which is preparedness--the necessary 
operations training and maintenance, preparedness of our military--in 
an unplanned way. They are treating it as an expense by sending it over 
to an account that is not even on the budget--an account called 
overseas contingency operations or the funds for what used to be the 
Iraq war and is now the winding down of the Afghanistan war. This is an 
unbudgeted item--operations readiness, training--necessary for our 
military to be ready, and they are taking it out of the Defense 
Department budget and sticking it over here. Now, that doesn't make 
sense.
  Some might say: Well, why in the world would they do that? Because 
folks around here are concerned about something called the sequester, 
which is supposedly an artificial limit on keeping expenditures of the 
Federal Government below a certain level. That may sound like a good 
thing, if it is done with legitimate numbers, but when in fact you are 
creating that artificial limit pressing down on Federal spending, but 
you take a major part of that Federal spending out and put it over here 
in an unaccounted-for account that doesn't reach those budgetary caps, 
that is nothing more than--I will put it politely--budgetary sleight of 
hand. I will put it more directly: That is budgetary fakery. Therefore, 
this Senator is going to oppose the bill.
  The Senate Committee on Armed Services has received testimony from 
military leader after military leader--chief master sergeants, 
generals, admirals--who have said the policy of this arbitrary budget 
cap called sequestration is harming our national security and is 
putting our military strategy at risk.
  Our strategy is not just dependent on defense spending, but it is 
very dependent upon nondefense spending, which in this bill is not even 
being addressed because that artificial ceiling--the sequestration--is 
like a meat ax right across the Federal budget. That is affecting--and 
every one of those military leaders will tell you--that is affecting 
our military preparedness.
  These arbitrary budget caps impact this nondefense spending. It keeps 
us from providing funds for other agencies that are so essential to the 
national security. The Coast Guard, they are out there in the war zone. 
They are in another war zone down in the Caribbean as they are 
interdicting all kinds of drug smugglers. What about the FBI, the CIA, 
the DEA, Customs, Border Patrol, Air Traffic Control, TSA? All of those 
are affected and affect national security.
  So if we are going to continue to budget like this, the result is 
going to be more budget uncertainty for our military, and it is going 
to end up bleeding funds away from our military readiness.
  What we are doing is we are avoiding the obvious. The obvious is 
working around to bring those numbers down under those artificial 
budget caps. So it is time for us to get rid of the sequester. We did 
it before, 2 years ago, with a bipartisan budget--the one known as 
Murray-Ryan. We need to do it again. Otherwise, right now, we are 
wasting our time working on bills that have no chance of becoming law. 
We need to fix the budget caps for defense and nondefense spending. You 
do not use a bandaid when you have an artery that is gushing blood.
  Now, it is not just this. There are other examples. Take, for 
example, a program that I have some familiarity with--our Nation's 
space program. We have been trying since 2010, since Senator Kay Bailey 
Hutchison, a Republican from Texas, and I passed a NASA authorization 
bill that put us on the course that will ultimately, as the President 
has now announced, take us to Mars. But we can't get the policy updated 
because we can't pass another NASA authorization bill. So what happens? 
It goes to the Committee on Appropriations. Thank goodness we have 
folks such as Senator Shelby and Senator Mikulski who direct that.
  But now what is happening to appropriations bills? They are being put 
under this sequester, and, because of that, it is going to be hard in 
this Chamber to get 60 votes to pass appropriations bills. As a result, 
we are going to be in near cardiac arrest right at the end of the time, 
during a continuing resolution, which is no way to run a railroad when 
you appropriate money. We have to come to the altar and realize what we 
are facing, and that is this artificial budgetary cap.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.

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