Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chair, I would like to thank Chairman Frelinghuysen, Ranking Member Visclosky, and Chairman Rogers for their efforts. I particularly want to thank Chairman Frelinghuysen and Ranking Member Visclosky for working in such a cooperative manner.

However, the two parties remain very far apart in their approach to the appropriations process. Our differences were plainly evident during consideration of the fiscal year 2016 budget resolution. Not one of my Democratic colleagues supported the majority's budget because it maintained sequestration levels. As the President said: the majority has returned our economy to the same top-down economics that has failed us before and slashes investments in the middle class that we need to grow the economy.

During debate on the previous five appropriations bills, my majority colleagues argued strenuously that allocations at the sequester level were nonnegotiable. They argued our committee was hamstrung by the Budget Control Act and that we were powerless to renegotiate another sequester relief package, as had been done under the Murray-Ryan agreement 2 years ago. At the same time, others on our committee told the press that ``pressure would build'' to address sequestration or pass a continuing resolution because sequester-level bills cannot be enacted.

The Defense bill before us appears to be operating under a different set of rules, with funding over the magical sequester level, a level we were told was the law of the land. It was not cut below the President's request, as were all the other nondefense bills. By using $38 billion in overseas contingency operations funding to plug the hole created by the budget caps, this bill fully funds defense programs and avoids the inadequacies facing the other bills.

Let me be very, very clear. I am not making a case that the Defense bill is too high or advocating that it should be reduced. We live in a very dangerous world. We need to attend to our defense, but we should do so in a responsible fashion.

Our military leaders have discouraged the use of the overseas contingency operations/global war on terror budget to fund regular defense costs. They contend that doing so undermines the Defense Department's ability to plan over the long term. Funding $38 billion of the Pentagon's regular base budget activities with war funds creates future-year budget caps that would be difficult to fill.

This practice irresponsibly addresses only one of the budget imperatives, creating clear losers in most of the other appropriation bills.

If this bill were to move forward as is, I fear my majority colleagues would mentally move on; the urgency facing the entire appropriations process would fade because we have ``taken care of'' our national security needs.

That, my friends, is a dangerous strategy, especially given that we know none of these bills are likely to be signed into law by the President as they are currently written.

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Mrs. LOWEY. We can deal with that fact now or deal with it again over the holidays, but we are going to have to deal with it.

Members of the armed services and their families live in every one of our communities. They drive on crowded highways and over crumbling bridges. Most of them send their kids to public schools.

These families expect the meat and products they buy to be safe and the airplanes in which they fly to be protected. If they should ever get sick, they need to have the biomedical research in place so that safe and effective treatments are available to them.

These are reasonable expectations. What is not reasonable is to put forward several annual spending bills that mindlessly cut these priorities simply because we can't agree on a reasonable budget.

National security and economic strength are inextricably linked. Let's get back to the table and set realistic spending caps to provide what is needed both for our national security and to create jobs, improve infrastructure, fund biomedical research, and grow the economy.

Let's get together. Let's vote ``no'' on this bill and move on.

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