Pay Our Guard and Reserve Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, the Pay Our Guard and Reserve Act would fix a simple drafting error that existed in H.R. 3210, the Pay Our Military Act.

This bill was intended to appropriate funding so that all of our servicemembers, Active Duty, Guard, and Reserve, will receive their paychecks on time and without interruption during the government shutdown.

As most of you know, our Guard and Reserve members perform two kinds of training throughout the year: annual training, which occurs for 2 weeks a year; and Inactive Duty for Training, which is commonly referred to as weekend drill.

While H.R. 3210 appropriated funding for pay and allowances for servicemembers who perform active service during the shutdown, it mistakenly omitted pay and allowances for performing inactive duty training or weekend drill.

This was a simple technical drafting error in the legislation.

I have heard from many concerned Members requesting that we address this issue as quickly as possible to prevent any lapse in pay for our Guard and Reserve members during this shutdown. This bill would correct that and ensure that all of our servicemembers receive their paychecks on time, including for time served on weekend drill.

The Pay Our Military Act passed the House unanimously, and I believe this bill should have broad bipartisan support as well.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, this is not a political bill. This is a correction bill. It has been held pretty much to a legislative process rather than a political process.

I want to say how much I have enjoyed the many years of serving on the same subcommittees with Mrs. Lowey, and then she advanced to the high rank as the ranking member on the Appropriations Committee.

To my friend, Mr. Visclosky, we have worked together for so long on the Defense Appropriations Committee to bring to this House and to this Congress legislation that had no sign of politics.

H.R. 3230, I believe, will be supported by everybody in the House. It doesn't solve the overall problem, but it does solve one problem for the Guard and Reserve. I am satisfied that there will be other legislation, maybe not following this particular bill, but following in the course of events that will come later. Today, we are dealing with H.R. 3230, and I hope that everybody in the Chamber and in the House will support H.R. 3230 and at leasthttp://thomas.loc.gov take care of one of the problems.

With that very important thought, I yield back the balance of my time.

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