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Floor Speech

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Mr. GOLDEN. Mr. Speaker, this amendment seeks to undo a bipartisan agreement to increase authorized funding for our military that the Armed Services Committee collectively concluded is appropriate given the realities of today's evolving national security threats.

We are faced with some serious threats globally, such as ongoing terrorist threats; the potential for nuclear proliferation in the Middle East; tensions in the South China Sea; Russia's invasion of a democratic state in Europe; incredible technological advancements that we cannot fall behind on in AI, quantum computing, and biotechnology; increasing competition in space and cyberspace; disinformation campaigns; and data surveillance that strengthen authoritarian regimes and lend themselves to attacks on democratic societies.

The amendment that I offered invests in our Navy, which is critically important right now. It invests in missile defense, which is very necessary, given advancing technologies in things like hypersonics, R&D for AI, biotechnology, and quantum computing, as I discussed.

Importantly, it increases critical assistance to the Ukrainian military as it fights to defend democracy from Russian aggression.

As our military seeks to prepare to grapple with these new, future realities, it must also do so in the face of significant supply chain disruptions resulting from COVID and from rising inflation which my amendment also addresses.

The ranking member spoke, I think correctly, about the need to protect those who serve our country, particularly those on the low end of the scale, who are having a very negative impact because of higher grocery costs, higher gas prices, and higher housing costs. I am particularly proud of the bonuses that are in this amendment to look out for them.

The bottom line, this $37 billion amendment is bipartisan. It was and remains necessary for the national security of our country. I appreciate that some people might choose different sets of priorities on how best to support our military. There are, in fact, some amendments out there that would set different priorities for how this additional funding should be spent. But rolling back this defense topline overall, for the sake of having a debate about the topline, I believe points us in the wrong direction. That is because of the dangers that we face today and those that we know are just around the corner, which we really can't afford to delay trying to adjust right now.

Many people believe that we are falling behind in some of these important issues that I have been talking about like, again, the biotechnology, the quantum computing, missile defense, and other things.

We think that this is a good compromise. I appreciate the ability to work across the aisle with my colleagues on the committee.

For these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment.

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Mr. GOLDEN. Mr. Speaker, in talking about one of the previous amendments, I pointed out this was part of a bipartisan agreement to increase the top line by $37 billion. Compromise really requires people to set different priorities, come to the table, and find an agreement.

Many of us on the committee--on both sides of the aisle--really believe strongly, as does the Navy, that we need a larger, more capable fleet force. We have different priorities and we talk about them a lot. For me, I think we need more Flight III destroyers out there--the Navy agrees with me about that.

Mr. Gallagher over here is a big proponent of getting new frigate ships out there, they are faster and have great capability.

Mr. Speaker, I know Mr. Wittman works very closely with Mr. Courtney on submarines and many other things. He made a good point. Giving up these capabilities without replacing them with other capabilities is a problem, but I also agree with the chairman that this is not a top priority program for the Navy.

I do have concerns that after just a short period of time they are seeking to shutter this program. It shows, to me, a problem with the Navy in some of their new programs. We have seen this with other things, like the DDG-1000, and I think Congress and our committee need to crack down on this and do a better job with oversight over the Navy to make sure these programs are going to pan out to be worthy investments.

It is a shame to see these ships retired after so few years. I know that there are allied nations out there that would like to make use of them. A Senator from Maine, from my State, talks about perhaps repurposing these toward drug interdiction in the southwest hemisphere. Again, we just can't be scrapping these things. It is a lost investment and a terrible waste of taxpayer dollars.

That being said, I like the chairman's amendment in that it is seeking to make other important investments with the money, investing in these munition plants in the United States. Putting more money toward the readiness of our Navy force is an identified problem that we have agreed to in a bipartisan way--it is very necessary. I think we have pretty significant workforce readiness problems in the Navy to man those ships, so it is a good repurposing of those funds.

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