National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2017
Floor Speech
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Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, to be recognized to speak in support of the McCain amendment.
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Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, to Members of the body on both sides of the aisle, I appreciate the effort to produce a bipartisan national defense authorization bill. I think our committee did a good job in coming up with a bipartisan bill, but as a body and as a country we haven't done enough and this is a chance to rectify what I think is an incredibly big problem.
We are at war--at least I think we are. We have been at war for the last 15 years. I cannot tell you how hard it has been on the all- voluntary force. I was in the Air Force for 33 years. I retired last year. I had the pleasure of meeting a lot of men and women in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think I have been to Iraq and Afghanistan 37 times in the last decade. I have seen incredible sacrifice by those who serve our Nation to defend us against another 9/11 and what their families have gone through.
As a nation and a Congress, what have we done to those who have been fighting this war? We are on track to have the smallest Army since 1940. Sequestration--across-the-board budget cuts that have taken almost $1 trillion out of the defense budget--is insanity and nobody seems to give a damn about fixing it. None of us have to go and fly in planes that are about to fall out of the sky. None of us are commanders of troops and having to use duct tape to get through the day. None of us have to worry about going over and over and over to the war zone because the war is getting worse, not better.
It looks like all of us should listen to our commanders who have said with one voice that the readiness of the U.S. military is in an emergency situation. The ability to give the flying hours our pilots need can't be done because of budget constraints. It looks like we would want to listen to the Chief of Staff of the Army, Air Force, Navy, and the Commandant of the Marine Corps who are telling us that sequestration has taken a toll on the ability to defend this Nation.
We have had some patchwork solutions. We put some money back, but we are due to go back into sequestration next year. The amount of money we put back in the Ryan-Murray compromise was much appreciated, and Senator McCain is trying to put an $18 billion infusion into the military to meet their unfunded needs that would plus-up the Army by 15,000 and would plus-up the Marine Corps and the National Guard and would give more money for operation and maintenance.
The problem that seems lost on this Congress is that training hours have to give way to operational needs in theater. Let me give one small example. There is a Marine Corps readiness rapid response force in Spain that is stationed in Spain to deal with Benghazi-type events throughout Africa. They have to fly--in case something went bad-- thousands of miles. They have 12 aircraft, B-22s, and 2 teams. The Commandant of the Marine Corps is having to take six of these aircraft away from Spain to bring them back to the United States because we don't have enough airplanes to train the B-22 pilots. That means there is a hole in our ability to protect our citizens and diplomats in Africa.
I cannot tell you the damage that sequestration has done to our military, and we seem unmoved by all of this. I cannot believe that the body is not responding more aggressively to the needs of our military, given the threats we are facing. How much more information do we need from our commanders to believe this is an emergency?
I say to my Democratic colleagues, I know sequestration is hurting on the nondefense side, but all spending is not equal. I stand ready with you to find a way to buy back sequestration and pay for it by having some revenue come from closing loopholes and deductions like the supercommittee envisioned by using some revenue and some entitlement reform to buy back what is left on sequestration. I am not asking that you just spend money on defense and ignore the rest of the problems associated with sequestration.
I have sat done on two separate occasions with Members on the other side to try to find ways to buy back sequestration so we could actually achieve the savings, and we have been able to not do a whole lot. Ryan and Murray came up with a fix that provided some relief that expires at the end of the year.
The bottom line is this. The McCain amendment is making the argument that the $18 billion in this amendment has to be spent based on an emergency.
Here is the question: Is there an emergency when it comes to the operational needs of this country on the defense side? Have we put our troops in a spot where we are risking their lives and their ability to prosecute the war because we have gone too far with defense cuts? I think we have, but if you don't believe me, you should listen to our commanders and hopefully I can read some of their quotes.
With this $18 billion infusion, we are able to increase the size of the Army, and if you are in the Army, you could use a little help right about now. You have been busting your ass for the last 15 years, going back and forth, back and forth, and the way we reward your service is to decrease the size of the Army.
I just got back from Asia, and everybody in Asia is wondering: What the heck is America doing? We are going to have the smallest Navy since 1915. We are going to pivot to Asia with what? Under sequestration our ability to modernize the Navy has been lost. They don't have the money to build the new ships that we need to fight the wars of the future and contain a threatening China because they are in a war now. They are robbing Peter to pay Paul. It looks like we would want to help the Marines. If you are a marine, boy, have you been on the tip of the spear.
This amendment would allow us to have 3,000 more marines. What does that mean? It means we will have 3,000 more people to help prosecute the war and take a little burden off the Marine Corps, which has been absolutely worn out. Seventy percent of the F-18s in the Marine Corps have problems flying. We are cannibalizing planes to keep other planes in the air.
To those who say we need to reform the Pentagon, you are right. Not only do we need to, we have. Fifty percent of the Department of Defense budget is personnel costs. Last year we reformed retirement. At 20 years, you are not going to get half of your base pay. You will get 40 percent in the future. That will save money. We are going to allow a Thrift Savings Plan for those who want to contribute 5 percent of their pay and we will match 5 percent, but they can't get the money until they are 59 or 60. That will be money for the servicemembers, but it comes later.
We are going to ask our retirees to pay a little bit more for the military health care system because we haven't had a premium adjustment of any consequence since 1995. We are going to go to fixed-price contracts to deal with the abuse of cost-plus contracts to save money. We are trying to reduce the number of general officers because they have exploded.
We are doing a lot of things to make the Pentagon operate better, but at the end of the day, you need people to defend this country. When sequestration kicks back in, we are going to go from 475,000 to 420,000.
What I am asking for is a bipartisan effort to stop the bleeding, to take the request for the military that is unfunded and desperately needed and give them a little bit of hope. We need to let them know Congress is listening to their problem because we are not. We are ignoring the problems of our military because if we were really serious about helping them, we would pass this by a voice vote, but, no, we can't increase defense spending by $18 billion to increase the size of the Army, Marine Corps, and the National Guard, to give more flight time to our pilots, more money to maintain the equipment and increase the size of the National Guard, which has really suffered during the last 15 years, and to buy more airplanes. The bottom line is, we can't do all of that because we have to increase nondefense spending.
To my Democratic colleagues, if you don't think there is an emergency in the military, then you haven't been listening. To those Republicans who believe the appropriations bill has adequately funded the needs of the military, you haven't been listening. Well, I have been listening. Washington is broken in many ways. I enjoy being a Member of the Senate, and I respect my colleagues, even though we disagree, but this one I can't understand. I can't understand this. I can understand ideology, I can understand the differences between pro-life, pro- choice, guns, revenue, and taxes. I can understand conservatism, liberalism, libertarianism. I can understand that in a great country we have differences, but this I can't understand.
I can't understand why any of us would let this happen to our military. Whether you are a Libertarian, vegetarian, Republican, or Democrat, you need these men and women defending you so you can argue among yourselves. We can argue until the cows come home about how America should be, and it is a privilege to have this debate. While we are arguing among ourselves about how to make America great again or to become one, stronger together, or whatever damn phrase is out there, the people who are giving us the privilege to argue are being worn out and underfunded.
Let me tell you the consequence of this. At a time the enemy is growing in capability to attack this country, we are gutting our ability to defend this country. A perfect storm is brewing. We have an America in retreat and in decline all over the world. We have a Presidential contest that is absolutely crazy. The Republican nominee, when he talks about foreign policy, it is complete gibberish.
The Democratic nominee seems to be afraid to articulate how to change things. What is she going to do differently? Where is she on sequestration?
Secretary Clinton, do you think now is the time to spend more on our military because we are in an emergency situation? Tell me why I am wrong. Tell me why you don't believe all of the things said by those in leadership.
I am dumbfounded that this is hard given the state of readiness of our military. I am dumbfounded that we can't improve military readiness without increasing spending for food safety modernization. I am sure there is probably something legitimate there, but the Food Safety Modernization Act is not going to stop ISIL from coming here.
There is $1.9 billion for water infrastructure. I am sure it is legitimate, but all I can say is that whatever problems we have with water, they pale in comparison to the problems we have with terrorism.
Who are we as a body, who are we as a people if we can't see this being an emergency? If you are not listening and you have shut your mind and eyes to what is going on, then shame on you.
This is the low point to me; that we cannot as a body agree that our men and women in the military are in a bad spot and they need our help yesterday. So vote the way you are going to vote, but don't tell me that the Appropriations Committee, of which I am a member, has fixed the problem because we haven't. We did appropriate more money, and I appreciate it, but the $18 billion on this list is not addressed by the Appropriations Committee's effort to do more, and don't tell me this is not an emergency because I don't believe it. Don't hold the men and women hostage from getting the money they desperately need to defend us all because you want more money somewhere else.
Whatever differences we have, whatever hopes and dreams we have as individuals or collectively as Americans are at risk because the people we are fighting would kill every one of us if they could. They could care less if you are a Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative. They want to hurt us, and they want to hurt us badly, and the only way to keep them from hurting us is for some of us to go over there in partnership with others over there to keep the fight from coming back over here.
It looks like all of us can agree on giving the people going over there the best chance they can to survive the fight, come back home and protect us all, but apparently we can't get there. Shame on us. Shame on us all.
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