National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027
Floor Speech
First of all, I want to thank Chairman Rogers for the process that he put together on this bill. In committee, I think we had a very fair and open process, certainly the way the bill was put together originally. The chairman did a lot of work in the last couple of years on acquisition reform, and we did that in a bipartisan way. It is reflected in the substance that was in the bill. Then we had a very good debate. A lot of amendments were offered, and I think it was handled in a very bipartisan way. So the product has a lot of good aspects to it, and the chairman mentioned most of them.
The continuation down the road of acquisition reform can best be summed up as we need to innovate faster at scale. The chairman did a great job of describing why that is so important and the progress we have made and why this committee has played such a crucial role in helping to make that happen. I think we should be proud of that.
I think the bill also reflects support for the troops, as the chairman mentioned: a pay raise, but more than that, just genuinely making sure that they and their families have the support that they need. This builds off of the Quality of Life task force that we had 2 years ago to continue to show strong support for our troops, and, yes, crucially the oversight component.
We are really focused on trying to get the Pentagon to a place where they can pass an audit, where we can be more confident that the money that they are spending is being effectively spent, and I think this bill reflects that.
The chairman didn't mention this, but we have had a lot of frustrations with this particular Pentagon in terms of their not providing information in a timely manner to us and to the American public. We have a number of provisions in this bill that require that or fence funding for aspects of the Pentagon to get them there.
I will say also a couple of Democratic amendments did pass in the process. We got collective bargaining for all defense employees back in on a bipartisan vote. We also changed back to the base names that the commission put in place, which I think is a very positive step. There are a lot of good things about this bill and certainly about the process as it came out of committee.
There are just three problems from the Democratic perspective. First of all, the rule is incredibly partisan. There are a number of issues on the size of the budget, the number of oversight issues concerns, and concerns we have about the war in Iran. None of those amendments were ruled in order.
I just don't think that is the way this process should work. They should be ruled in order. If they want to vote them down, then vote them down, but they have completely blocked any of those Democratic amendments. Of the amendments that are up for debate, I believe that only one is a Democratic amendment.
There is a lot of mutually agreed upon stuff that is en bloc, but on the truly controversially important amendments, they don't give us a chance to even have the debate. Those debates are incredibly important because there are a lot of concerns we have, not so much with this bill as with the Department of Defense as it is currently being run, and as the President is currently exercising national security defense policy in this country.
I will mention just two: number one, the war in Iran. We are all sort of, I guess, in collective denial about what an utter disaster this has been and how it is getting worse every day. We lost four more servicemembers over the weekend. This is after we have been told over and over and over again that Iran is completely obliterated, they have no military capacity whatsoever.
Yet, they are still launching missiles. They are still launching drones. They are still wounding and killing American servicemembers and threatening shipping throughout in the Strait of Hormuz. The degree to which the President is not living in reality on the war in Iran is unbelievably alarming.
Why do we let this continue?
Why doesn't the Republican Party Speaker say: Yes, it would be great if we could drop a certain number of bombs on Iran and they would quit, and they would give up, and they would abandon their nuclear program. They would abandon their support for terrorism. They would get rid of their ballistic missile program. They would open up the Strait of Hormuz.
There is no plan to make that happen, and yet the President keeps going forward, keeps dropping more bombs deplenishing our stockpile, placing us at greater risk, and creating greater global chaos.
Whatever else may be said about the NDAA, there are a lot of positive aspects to it. It will continue to support the Department of Defense which the President is using to wage this war, this incredibly disastrous, terrible decision of a war. That makes it very difficult to support this. We need to get peace now, and that would help.
Second, the amount of money. You add it up, this is $1.15 billion. They want $350 billion for a reconciliation package, and they want another $90 billion in a supplemental package. That puts them at $1.6 trillion.
Could we effectively spend $1.6 trillion in the Department of Defense? Maybe. I question whether or not they could spend that much money that quickly, that effectively. Sure, there are a lot more missiles, drones, ships, and planes we could buy.
We have a $40 trillion debt. We are making cuts in Medicaid and other healthcare programs in order to fund this $1.6 trillion. Even then, we are still driving up the debt because we insist on doing $4 trillion in tax cuts. The math just doesn't add up.
We cannot support a defense budget of that size when we know that it is making it more likely that we are going to struggle to fund crucial domestic programs in healthcare, infrastructure, energy, and all kinds of areas that are an incredible priority. The dollar figure is simply too high.
Mr. Chairman, in closing--this is a plea that always falls on deaf ears, but I will try--you can't vote to increase the debt by $4 trillion and then a couple months later vote for a balanced budget amendment. We are not living in reality around here. Make a decision. Either the debt is fine and you don't worry about it, or you want to balance it. You can't vote to increase the debt and then say, oh, my gosh, we need a balanced budget amendment.
The lack of fiscal reality is one of the two biggest problems with this bill. The other one is the continued support for the war in Iran that is implicitly included in it.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Houlahan), the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Military Personnel.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Once again, I thank the chairman for the process that we went through here. I have made the arguments. I don't want to restate them and belabor them, but we are deeply concerned about the ongoing war in Iran. There is no plan, no direction, continually rising costs. We are also concerned about the amount of money that is being poured into defense, at the same time that we are seeing cuts in Medicaid, cuts in food stamps, cuts in a variety of programs that are enormously important, and tax cuts that continue as the deficit and the debt get ever higher.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Rogers).
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I associate myself with the remarks of Chairman Rogers. I agree with his reasons for opposing it. I urge the body to oppose it.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum).
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I too have no speakers and also urge adoption of the en bloc package. I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield myself 2 minutes.
We need partnerships and alliances, and right now they are struggling for a variety of different reasons. We don't need to lump anything else onto the pile of we want to separate ourselves from our partners and allies.
Here I could go down a rabbit hole of complaints about the way the Trump administration treats our partners and allies. It is driving them away, creating major rifts. I mean, just yesterday, we decided that we are going to put a 50 percent tariff on Canada, apparently because the wind is blowing south from their wildfires, and we don't like the smoke.
We need to show our partners and allies that we are with them. We need to begin reversing some of the damage that all of the belittling and insults that the Trump administration has done to our allies has caused. This amendment moves us in the opposite direction.
It is also important to note that these training exercises are of substantial benefit to the U.S. We need these partners and allies. We want them to have the same basic doctrine and methods that we have. It is part of what we do in NATO.
We are bringing them in to make sure that they are properly integrated in our efforts. There is no need to sort of push them further away over a relatively minor amount of money.
I would also point out that we started the war in Iran. We are engaged in a major conflict in Latin America that everybody has sort of forgotten about, but we are at war with all the narcoterrorists down there. We are trying to stand up to China. We are asking the rest of the world to be with us on a lot of stuff that they have serious doubts about.
I think we should spend a little bit of time showing them that we value their partnership, that we want their help, that we need their help. This amendment takes us in the wrong direction.
Mr. Chair, I urge the body to oppose it, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, one point of clarification. When I said what our allies are struggling with, what they are struggling with is the idea of staying alive with the U.S., with the understanding that the U.S. still values those partnerships. I wasn't referring to any sort of financial struggle to them.
Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Rogers), who is the chairman of the committee.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I urge the body to oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, on that last point, Ukraine was a sovereign democratic state before Russia invaded. Yes, they are in the middle of a war, so their ability to maintain typical democratic principles is in jeopardy precisely because of the invasion. Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus in the middle of the Civil War. In a wartime, you are in a different position. Let's remember what Ukraine was before Russia invaded them and has brutally attacked them for over 4 years now. They were a sovereign, democratic state.
Second, Russia is a threat not just to Ukraine but to the region. They could potentially move on against the Baltics, Romania, or Poland if they are successful in Ukraine.
Lastly, to reiterate the chairman's point, we can achieve peace if Putin knows he can't win. We need to show resolve that we will stand with Ukraine as our allies have stepped up so much in the last couple of years to do so. That is what will bring this war to an end, is Putin knowing that he is not going to be able to take Ukraine. That forces him to the bargaining table. We need to send a strong message that we are not abandoning Ukraine. We are standing with them.
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