OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027

Floor Speech

Date: July 22, 2026
Location: Washington, DC

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Mr. NORCROSS. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

This amendment requires a report to outline the option for reducing the Department of Defense civilian workforce by 200,000 workers, a very arbitrary number.

It is truly stunning, a continuation of unprecedented attacks on our Federal civilian workforce that we have seen under this administration led by the very top, by President Trump and his Cabinet.

I will remind my colleagues that President Trump established DOGE last year, which resulted in cuts across the entire Federal workforce of over 280,000 employees. Since then, the Federal Government, and particularly the Department of Defense, has absolutely hemorrhaged critical talent, institutional knowledge, and subject-matter experts across our workforce, the men and women that we cannot afford to lose.

Over the last year, we have already seen reductions across the Department of Defense workforce by about 10 percent, over 78,000 workers. In fact, the GAO, the Government Accountability Office, already did a study on the Department of Defense's implementation of the 2025 reductions.

They put out their findings in a report on May 29 of this year. This is what they found: The Department of Defense did not consistently analyze the impacts on the civilian workforce reduction either in `25 or in prior years.

A study has been done, and they did absolutely nothing with it. Instead, we are taking up this amendment, which arbitrarily seeks recommendations to reach a target of 200,000 people in reduction before we even understand the impacts of the last set of cuts that have taken place.

Unfortunately, in our country and our national security, we already are paying the price for these reckless attacks on our hardworking men and women who keep our workforce and our Defense Department running. What we absolutely already know is these firings--

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Mr. NORCROSS. Mr. Chair, let's get to the bottom line here. Our responsibility as Members of Congress is to make sure that we have a Department of Defense that is ready. We can't do it with less people. We are losing this institutional knowledge that is so critical for defending our Nation.

Mr. Chair, I am against this. Please reject this amendment.

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