National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027
Floor Speech
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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. Chair, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I have no speakers on this en bloc. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I, too, urge all Members to support this en bloc package, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of the en bloc package, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I, too, urge support of the en bloc, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I don't have any speakers, so I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I urge support for the en bloc package, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I move to strike the last word for the purpose of doing closing debate on the NDAA. I assume Mr. Rogers intends to close, as well.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, first of all, I thank everyone involved in the process. We do this every year, but I think it is really important that we recognize the people who did all of the work to make this bill possible--certainly, the HASC staff, my able team behind me and the team that serves Mr. Rogers and serves the full committee. We worked in a bipartisan way through well over a thousand amendments and two or three times that many ideas to craft together a very large piece of incredibly important legislation. That work should not go unrecognized.
The members of the committee also go out of their way to work in an incredibly bipartisan way, and that is a credit to Chairman Rogers. He makes a real effort to make sure that Democrats are included, that we have a fair conversation, and that we try to get to the best result possible. I think that is incredibly important.
Mr. Chair, I also thank the Rules Committee for their hard work. They have to sort through over a thousand amendments, as well. Of course, the floor staff that has to work through this entire process every year does an outstanding and amazing job. They are dedicated public servants who deserve our very high praise.
In the bill itself, there are things I like and things I don't like. I think it reflects the process overall. I think it does a very good job of doing oversight of getting to acquisition reform, of continuing along the path of how we innovate faster at scale. The chairman has done an excellent job of pointing out the need for that.
We need innovative technologies. We need them in a more cost- effective way. This bill reflects those priorities. It also supports our troops and our families, including pay raises, general benefits across the board, and a real focus on making sure that our servicemembers are taken care of.
I don't like that the SAVE America Act is going to be attached to this. I don't like the gratuitous anti-trans amendments that were added to the bill. There are other aspects of it that I am troubled by, but overall, I respect the process.
The big point I will make today is, I really think we are at a crossroads in this Congress, in the appropriations process, as well, but in the NDAA. We are trying to work in a bipartisan way, and I will say that Mr. Rogers does it. I think Senator Wicker in the Senate does it, but we have to do that against the backdrop of an unbelievably partisan and, in many ways, out-of-control administration and Department of Defense. They are taking us down roads that I think are incredibly dangerous and make it very hard to maintain that bipartisan spirit.
Mr. Chair, I want you to know that I am an incredibly reasonable person. I will work with absolutely anybody. Some people will say I am too willing to work with people, but that is the nature of the democratic process. I don't identify the people I like and don't like, and say if I don't like you, I am not going to work with you.
For representative democracy to work, we have to work with people that we disagree with--many times passionately, strongly--on incredibly important issues. We have done that throughout my entire time on this committee through a fair number of chairs and ranking members.
For 65 years--I haven't been on the committee for 65 years, but we have passed the National Defense Authorization Act. During President Trump's first term, when I was chair of the committee, I worked with the Trump administration. We got a good bill done. The second time, the President threw a little wrench in at the end. In a bipartisan way, we actually overrode the President's veto to make sure that the NDAA got done. This year, we have issues that have risen above the normal flow of partisan divide.
First of all, we have the budget number. When we add it all up--and I know this bill only has $1.15 trillion in it, but baked into the defense budget is another $350 billion in reconciliation. I forget where the supplemental is at these days. I think it is around $90 billion, but you add it all up, and they are asking for $1.6 trillion in the defense budget. That is a 60 percent increase at a time when we are running a nearly $2 trillion deficit.
People are talking openly about what is going to happen when the U.S. has to default in 5 years, 6 years. This is also at a time when, again, we insist on cutting taxes, cutting taxes. No, cutting taxes does not increase revenue. Just because revenue goes up from one year to the next when you have cut taxes--it was going to go up anyway.
The budget office says that the tax cuts cost us $4 trillion over 10 years. When you look at the other priorities that are out there--cuts to Medicaid, cuts to SNAP, inability to invest in infrastructure and housing. The American people are struggling to pay their bills. Then, we are going to put $1.6 trillion into the defense budget. It is not a reasonable thing to ask. We can't work in a bipartisan way on a number like that.
Again, the White House and Department of Defense take an unbelievably partisan approach. They have no interest in talking to us. They are giving briefings just to Republicans on crucial issues. That has never happened before. Through Democrat or Republican, I have never seen anything like this. The unbelievable partisanship is undermining our ability to get to a bipartisan bill, and it starts with the budget.
There are many other issues, like the war in Iran. We are in an incredibly dangerous situation. The costs continue to escalate. We have lost more servicemembers.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I move to strike the last word again. I have, actually, eight of them if I want to use them.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, we stumbled into a conflict in the dumbest way imaginable. In the history of the United States of America, we have made some mistakes in wars. This was about as idiotic a thing as I have ever seen, and the cost is to the global economy, our reputation, instability in the Middle East, the loss of service members, and thousands of people wounded.
I know a lot of people say, well, it is terrible because Trump never had a plan. It is actually a hell of a lot worse than that. He had a plan. His plan was that he was going to bomb Iran for 4 weeks, and they were going to give up. That was literally his plan.
People told him in his own administration that was idiotic. It wasn't going to happen, but he did it anyway. Then, when it didn't work, he just thinks if we drop a few more bombs--here we are.
We keep hearing about how the Iranian military is completely obliterated. It is gone. They are defeated, yet the missiles and the drones keep coming. People in the region keep dying, and our service members keep dying.
That is not just a mistake. That is living in an alternative universe. That is not living in the world that we are actually in, and the war continues.
As we support anything in the defense area, we are de facto supporting this war with no end in sight. The way the President talks about it: Oh, we are going to take Kharg Island. We can take Kharg Island. It won't be a problem.
That is insane if you actually follow the military plans. Maybe you can take it, but you have to hold it. They are going to be lobbing missiles at you. We are in an incredibly serious business, and the President is talking about this like it is some sort of bad fiction novel.
We have to hold them accountable for that, and it is not just the war in Iran. We are engaged in a major conflict in Latin America right now, which people don't know about. We are fighting narcoterrorists. We are still blowing up boats. We are partnering with various different countries and killing people down there, all with no transparency.
Then, we have what is going on in Europe. We periodically threaten to pull troops out of Europe. The President and the Vice President and others talk about Europe facing civilizational erasure and really focused on that issue of pulling back from supporting them in any way because--what?--we are not allies and partners.
The strongest alliance, NATO, in the history of this country is regularly denigrated by our President. Now, I know that people want to kid themselves and say, ``Look, he is just doing it so that our NATO partners step up. That is all we want to do,'' but that is not why he is just doing it.
I will give you a great example: Hungary. I was talking with a Department of Defense official the other day. He said our plan in Europe is actually working because NATO is stepping up, and, crucial to that, was that Orban lost so that Hungary supported the support for Ukraine, but our President and Vice President were supporting keeping the dictator in charge of Hungary so that never would have happened.
We are in incredibly dangerous times, and then, we have the President's use of our military domestically, which he has done. He gives a speech talking about election interference, leaving us all to wonder is he going to honor the outcome of this election. What is our obligation to make sure that he does? We are not in normal times.
I am also deeply concerned about Secretary Hegseth and the way he is running the Department of Defense. He, too, has no idea what is happening in Iran, or how we are ever going to get out of that war, but he has also talked about giving no quarter to our enemies.
We accidentally bombed a girl's school and killed 145 civilians. I don't know how long ago now, 3 or 4 months ago. It is obvious we did it. We won't take responsibility for it. Then, the Secretary of Defense comes out and says publicly: No quarter for our enemy. He has served in the military. He knows what that means--no survivors.
The President talks about erasing the Iranian civilization. He talks about bombing civilian targets. Never would the United States of America have done any of those things.
We are in an incredibly, incredibly dangerous time. I wish to maintain the bipartisan nature of this bill--I do, and I know that the chairman does.
But if we are going to do this, we are going to need some Republicans to stand up to the President of the United States and say, no. No, we are not going to get you $1.6 trillion. No, we are not just going to give you a blank check for a war that is totally out of control, not going anywhere, and with no end in sight.
I keep hearing people say: Well, we just have to finish the job, like we are cleaning out the garage, and if we just stick at it long enough--
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I move to strike the last word.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, if we just stick at it long enough, we will be done. There is no plan. There is no plan to bomb a target that is going to make Iran change their mind.
We have to stand up and say, no, we can't do those things, and I say all of that again.
I want to get us back to a reasonable place where we can have a bipartisan agreement, and I hope in the next couple of months we will get there.
I really want people to understand how unprecedented this moment is that we are in.
The President is taking us down a bitterly partisan and divisive road and pushing policies--I didn't even talk about the tariffs that he slaps on our allies at a whim.
Look at Canada. Apparently, there are fires up in Canada, and the wind is blowing south, so it is Canada's fault, and we have to slap a 50 percent tariff on them. This is the way we govern? It is insane, and we need to rein it in.
We in Congress need to stand up and say: No, we are going to begin to get some of this under control. At a minimum, let's have a sensible budget. Let's stop the war in Iran.
I can't support this bill. It profoundly hurts me because I believe in this process. It is the last thing I will say. I will continue to want to work with any reasonable person who shows up in the Trump administration. I don't want to shun them because this body has to work. If we don't pass legislation, then the President has even more power. If the legislative branch shuts down, that simply consolidates more power in the executive branch.
We have to find a way through this, but it is not going to be easy. I want to make sure people understand the unprecedented nature of where we are at, and we all begin to work together to get ourselves to a better place.
Mr. Chair, with that, I yield back the balance of my time.
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