May 21, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 85 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Pages S2997-S2999]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                      Military Appreciation Month

  Mr. PERDUE. Madam President, May is Military Appreciation Month. In 
light of that, I come to the Senate floor to remind us all just how 
important our military is to our way of life. One of the blessings of 
being a U.S. Senator and being on the Armed Services Committee and a 
past member of the Foreign Relations Committee, I have had the 
privilege to travel, as you have, around the world, visiting with our 
men and women in uniform.
  I have concluded that the best--and I mean the very best--of what we 
produce here in America is in uniform around the world, worn by our 
women and men, protecting our interests and defending freedom around 
the world. There are only six reasons in the Declaration of 
Independence why 13 Colonies got together in the first place, and one 
of those was to provide for the common defense.
  Today, the world is more dangerous than any time in my lifetime. 
Today, the United States faces five threats across five domains. This 
is much more complicated than the world has ever seen. Today, we 
measure the threats in this manner: China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, 
and terrorism across five domains.
  It used to be air, land, and sea. Unfortunately, today, it is air, 
land, sea, cyber, and now space. The tragedy, frankly, of our time is 
we have treated space as a scientific endeavor over the last 30 years, 
and others who we now consider potential threats have treated it as a 
military domain.
  I grew up in a military town. My father served in Germany during 
World War II. When World War II was ended, he joined the Reserves and 
then was called up again in the Korean war. He spent a couple of years 
in Korea during the Korean war. I have his dog tags today in my office. 
They serve as a constant reminder of his commitment to defending our 
ideals and upholding our way of life here in America. It reminds me 
that every single woman and man in uniform in our services today do the 
same thing.
  Today, I am humbled to represent our men and women in uniform in the 
United States Armed Services Committee. I take that very seriously, as 
I know every member does. One of my greatest honors as a member of this 
committee and a former member of the Foreign Relations Committee, as I 
said, is to travel overseas. The highlight in every one of those trips 
is not meeting with the head of state or the head of the military or 
the foreign minister; it was having dinner with people from my home 
State who were in uniform around the world.
  When President Obama was in office, the No. 1 request I heard from 
heads of state around the world was: We need America to reengage.
  At that time, America had withdrawn. We had created a vacuum. People 
weren't asking us to be the world's policeman. They were asking us to 
basically reengage and have a seat at the table and lead again. After a 
decade of withdrawal from the world stage under the prior 
administration, America is now leading again.
  President Trump is reengaged with the rest of the world. He has made 
it clear that America's interest comes first. When we say America 
first, it doesn't mean America alone. Today, our allies trust us again, 
and our adversaries fear us again. President Trump has also taken 
action to rebuild

[[Page S2998]]

our military after it was gutted during the prior administration. Under 
President Obama, spending on the military was cut 25 percent, and we 
saw the resulting drop in our readiness.
  In the last 2 years, we have updated defense spending by $80 billion 
a year. As a result, in addition, we have avoided the use of continuing 
resolutions in each of the last 2 years, thanks to people on both sides 
of the aisle--Senator Leahy and Senator Shelby, who are the ranking 
member and the chair of the Appropriations Committee--who worked 
diligently last year and made sure that we got defense funding done 
before the end of the fiscal year and without a continuing resolution.
  Because of that, readiness is on the rise again in the military. 
Modernization efforts and rebuilding our military are underway, and our 
men and women in uniform are safer around the world, No. 1, and have 
the resources they need to carry out their mission.
  I am proud of the progress that we have made in just a very short 
period of time. Just in the last 2 years, our readiness has 
dramatically improved. However, a continuing resolution of any length 
for fiscal year 2020 will erode and undo a lot of progress we have made 
just in readiness over the last couple of years.
  I am really very concerned that this is a primary responsibility of 
ours here in the Senate and, indeed, in Congress, and it is one we have 
not stood up to in the past. We have got to do better than that this 
year.
  I believe that Secretary of the Navy, Richard Spencer, said it best 
when he described the impact of continuing resolutions. Since the 1974 
Budget Act was put into place, Congress has used 187 continuing 
resolutions as a release valve to fund the government in a temporary 
manner.
  Let me say that again, since 1974, 45 years, we have used 187 
continuing resolutions. Each one of those continuing resolutions is 
devastating to our military in so many ways that I will get into in 
just a minute. Continuing resolutions are absolutely devastating to our 
military, both in readiness and the ability to rebuild our military. It 
is the most insidious thing Congress can do to our men and women in 
uniform. Many of us here don't even realize the damage that continuing 
resolutions do to our military.
  I have questioned all three current service Secretaries and their 
chiefs of staff, both publicly and in private meetings, about the 
operational impacts of continuing resolutions and funding uncertainty.
  Here are some of the responses:
  A continuing resolution ``would be like a punch in the gut,'' 
according to ADM John Richardson, Chief of Naval Operations.
  A continuing resolution ``would stall our progress on readiness and 
modernization,'' said Gen. Bob Neller, Commandant of the U.S. Marine 
Corps.
  Heather Wilson, Secretary of the Air Force, said that the defense 
budget sequester ``did more damage to the United States Air Force and 
our ability to defend the nation than anything our adversaries have 
done in the last 10 years--and we did it to ourselves.''
  Secretary of the Army Mark Esper said:

       Fiscal uncertainty has done a great deal to erode our 
     readiness and hamper our ability to modernize. . . . If we do 
     not modernize the force right now, we risk losing a future 
     conflict against Russia or China. It's just that simple.

  Finally, Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer said, and this is 
classic:

       Continuing resolutions have cost the Department of the Navy 
     roughly $4 billion. . . . Since 2011, we have put $4 billion 
     in a trash can, put lighter fluid on top of it and burned it.

  I don't know how to put it more clearly than that.
  CRs have a direct and immediate impact across the entire Department 
of Defense--from training, to readiness, to maintenance, to personnel, 
and, yes, to contracting.
  During a CR, training must be rescoped, scaled back, or discontinued 
entirely, which means our warfighters are less prepared for battle and 
don't have the resources to defend themselves properly when in the heat 
of battle.
  Depot maintenance and weapons development are delayed, resulting in 
costly delays, less lethality, and higher costs.
  Hiring and recruitment are put on pause, leaving critical gaps in 
workforce skill sets.
  We have the development of cyber capability and space capabilities 
now. We are just ginning up those capabilities, and CRs absolutely 
devastate these young, developing capabilities.
  Change-of-station moves for servicemembers and their families are 
halted, creating unnecessary turmoil for families. Can you imagine that 
you have kids, and you are going to be deployed overseas. The timing 
has to be right to get your kids in schools over there. Well, if a CR 
happens to occur--and guess what happens around September 30. The end 
of our fiscal year. If your family is moving around that period of 
time, it could be held up because of that CR. That is very 
disconcerting to families already stressed by increased deployments and 
rapid turnarounds.
  The DOD cannot start new contracts or in many cases has to cancel 
existing ones. That devastates the supply chain. When we look at the 
supply chain in the military, after the devastating disinvestment of 
the last administration, one of the things that have to be rebuilt is 
the supply chain. The consistent funding of the supply chain is 
critical to the long-term defense of this country, and it is one we 
have taken for granted and have devastated over the last decade.
  Additionally, the Department of Defense has outlined hundreds of 
critical projects that would be disrupted or even discontinued if a 
current CR is used this year. I can think of one right now. A very much 
in demand helicopter has been under development for the last few years. 
It is ready to go. It is ready to be sent to the troops in the field. 
Yet, if we have a CR come September 30, it will be delayed 1 full year.
  We cannot allow this any longer. Clearly, CRs create inefficiencies 
and uncertainty that hurt the bottom line and our ability to fight. 
These funding disruptions weaken our strategic capability and shake the 
confidence and foundation of our Nation's industrial base.
  Until 2018, the Department of Defense started 13 of the last 17 years 
under a continuing resolution. Thirteen of the last 17 years, they 
started their fiscal year under a continuing resolution. Fortunately, 
for the last 2 years, despite other funding failures of Congress, we 
did not have to use a CR to fund the military. That has been a major 
factor in boosting readiness and our reinvestment and recap efforts.
  I hate to say it, but I believe we are staring down the barrel of a 
potential CR on September 30 this year. As we sit here tonight, there 
are only 25 working days between now and July 31. Why is that 
important? Because in the month of August, this body, along with the 
House, goes back to their States, and it is a work period in those 
States. That means we will not be able to pass appropriations bills 
here because we will not be here.
  If we don't move this appropriations bill and get it passed by the 
end, I believe, of July, when we come back in September, there will be 
only 10 working days, legislative working days, and there is no way we 
are going to get it all funded in that time.
  Last year, on July 31, we had only appropriated about 12\1/2\ percent 
of the Federal discretionary budget. We stayed here in August, to the 
credit of the leadership, Senator McConnell. I believe that because of 
that, we went from 12\1/2\ percent to 75 percent funding, including the 
Department of Defense, and therefore we were able to avoid a continuing 
resolution last year, as I have said.
  Other people have said that the greatest threat to our national 
security is our own national debt--General Mattis, Admiral Mullen. 
There are various other people who have said that who are in a position 
where they should know. I would add one thing to that that is 
devastating to our ability to defend this country, and that is the use 
of continuing resolutions.
  When we look at the domain threats and the natural threats that have 
evolved in the world right now--China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and 
terrorism--I don't think any of that damages the military, potentially, 
as much as our inability here to provide consistent funding for our 
military.
  During Military Appreciation Month, I can think of no higher calling 
than for Congress to work diligently on passing a defense 
appropriations bill.

[[Page S2999]]

First, we have to pass the National Defense Authorization Act, which we 
are working on this week. All the subcommittees are passing their 
markups this week. We hope to move on that immediately. I believe that 
will get passed here without much controversy.
  I know that leadership right now is talking about moving in a very 
intense manner, with a critical sense of urgency, to get this Defense 
appropriations bill done. I applaud those efforts. I want to support it 
in any way I can.
  I call on everybody in this body to be supportive of making sure that 
we can have, for the third year in a row--this is not a partisan issue; 
this is about our men and women in uniform. Given that this month is 
Military Appreciation Month, what better time to face up to this 
potential and make sure that we don't have a continuing resolution come 
September 30 of this year. That is the least we can do for our women 
and men in uniform. And we can fulfill the responsibility our Founders 
laid out in the Declaration of Independence when they outlined those 
six reasons why we were coming together, and the No. 1 reason we had at 
that time was to provide for the security of the United States of 
America.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Madam President, first, before my colleague from Georgia 
leaves, I want to thank him for his strong statement on the fact that 
we have to do defense appropriations.
  I know that the Presiding Officer certainly knows all about this, 
given her Active-Duty service on behalf of our Nation.
  As he has pointed out, every service has been affected by this. 
Speaking for the U.S. Marine Corps, part of the Marine Caucus that we 
have here, and talking with Bob Neller, who is our retiring 
Commandant--he has pointed out specifically that they don't have enough 
to do--I mean, we are proud of the Marine Corps. I always say we do 
more with less, but this time, you can't do more with less and then 
less and then less, and that is precisely where we are.
  I thank the Senator for making an outstanding statement. I join him 
in this plea on a bipartisan basis to get these appropriations bills 
done.
  Thank you.