Fiscal Year 2013 National Defense Authorization Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. REED. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to join with my colleague from Alabama (Mrs. Roby) and applaud her leadership in establishing and taking the lead this evening to discuss a critical issue that we are dealing with here in Washington as we go forward with the debate on the National Defense Authorization Act.

Mr. Speaker, as you know, this is the authorization bill that takes care of our men and women in our military ranks. Mr. Speaker, I tender my comments this evening based on the fact that I am the son of a career military officer who spent 20 years in the Army, saw active duty in World War II and Korea, received the Silver Star, multiple Purple Hearts, multiple Bronze Stars, for his efforts and his sacrifices that he made in those forums defending America and standing up for all of the freedoms and the beliefs that we all hold dear in America coast to coast. So I am honored to be a son of such a distinguished individual in our Armed Services, and though I never did wear the uniform, I carry with me the commitment that he passed on to my 11 older brothers and sisters that you always stand with our military, you always stand with our veterans, Madam Speaker, and that's why I join you tonight to come to the floor and discuss this important issue, because as we face the national debt crisis that we all know on both sides of the aisle is real, $15.7 trillion of national debt, it is clearly unsustainable.

We have to have a conversation, an open and honest conversation with all of the hardworking taxpayers of America and say here in Washington, D.C., we are going to try to get our act together, and to make the commonsense decisions when it comes to our fiscal house. And in that conversation, and as we go forward as we did last week with the issue of sequestration and the replacement, the reconciliation that Mr. Ryan from Wisconsin led, as we go forward with the debate on the National Defense Authorization Act this week, we need to go forward recognizing the cuts that have already occurred on the defense side of the ledger.

It is my understanding, looking at some of the numbers, that essentially 50 percent of the deficit reduction efforts to date has come at the expense of defense expenditures. That is approximately 20 percent of our Federal budget dedicated to defense spending.

So that 20 percent of defense spending is already absorbing 50 percent of the deficit reduction efforts that we have led here in Washington, D.C., primarily with the leadership of people like the lady from Alabama and other leaders in the freshman class.

So we have to make sure that when we go forward in this debate, we recognize the sacrifice and the hard decision--and rightfully so--that defense has been part of this conversation of getting our fiscal house in order, and every dollar has to be scrutinized, and that does include the defense budget.

But I think we're at the point, Madam Speaker, where we have to be very sensitive to any additional cuts--or those cuts that are going to be necessary because of the fiscal condition we find ourselves in America--that we do not cross that line in the sand that we must never break. That line in the sand is making sure that our men and women in harm's way are given the resources, the equipment, the tools to not only protect them when they're afield fighting for us and defending freedom of America, but when they come home as veterans and enjoy the benefits that they've earned by engaging in that sacrifice, by being in harm's way for all of us. We must make sure that we never cross that line with our cuts to our military that put those men and women in harm's way or those families that sacrifice so much with them, to have to endure the situation where those benefits that they earned are taken away. So we will stand, I think, united in a strong voice to make sure that doesn't happen. I know I am committed to it, Madam Speaker. And I will always stand--as my father taught me and taught my older brothers and sisters and my mother--you stand with the vets, you stand with the military. And though they have to be part of this conversation because of the harsh reality that we find ourselves in with $15.7 trillion worth of national debt, we cannot go that far that we jeopardize their very well-being and their sacrifices that they have recognized on our behalf.

So I was pleased to see in the proposal out of the FY13 National Defense Authorization Act the fact that we were able to beat back the administration's proposal to make significant fee increases in the TRICARE program--TRICARE being the health benefits that our veterans earned and enjoy--and which serve over 9.3 million beneficiaries, including 5.5 million military retirees. I am glad to see that the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, stopped that approach to dealing with the cuts on TRICARE or in fee increases on the TRICARE side. I will always want to stand for those commonsense principles that say: Cuts, yes, we have to do them, but we cannot do them across that line.

There is one area that I would like to also address before I yield to some of my colleagues that have joined us here on the floor, and that's the detainee provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act, which is the language in the bill that deals with making sure that the rights that we enjoy as American citizens are protected when it comes to the detainment of individuals in America.

I am pleased to see that language that I cosponsored with gentlemen such as Mr. Rigell, who has joined us this evening from Virginia, and Mr. Landry from Louisiana. When this issue came up in previous debates in last year's National Defense Authorization Act, there was a spirited debate, if you recall, Madam Speaker, in which the issue came up: Do American citizens still retain the rights as guaranteed under the Constitution when it comes to the writ of habeas corpus? There was a spirited debate, and I clearly came down on the side that we need to make sure that we protect those rights for American citizens, and that any issues of detainment are done in respect to the Constitution and all the rights that we enjoy as free citizens in America. I believe the bill did address that last year, but there was a legitimate question raised about it. So I'm pleased to see in this bill language, it is my understanding, that will make sure and be very clear that any American citizen detained in America has the rights as guaranteed under the Constitution. I hope my colleague from Virginia will touch on those issues, and I'm proud to stand with him to make sure that we send a clear message that American citizens continue to enjoy and will always continue to enjoy the rights and freedoms and protections as afforded to us under the Constitution, and that the writ of habeas corpus is secure and will continue to be secure as we move forward.

We can go on and on, but I know I have some colleagues. I notice I've got
a non-freshman Member to join us tonight, Madam Speaker, to address this critical issue, and we are pleased to have our senior Members down with us.

With that, I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

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Mr. REED. I thank the gentleman from Kentucky for his comments and for coming this evening and spending some time with us. And your comments, before I yield to the gentleman from Virginia, have spurred some thoughts that I would like to add to the conversation.

One of the things you touched upon is the fact that, as we make cuts and we downsize government, defense has to be part of that conversation, and the gentleman from Kentucky recognized that in his comments, and I recognize that.

But I recall a conversation, as a freshman Member I came here and we've met some individuals over the time, and one conversation that really sticks out in my mind when it comes to this issue is a conversation that we had, a handful of us, with Secretary of Defense, then-Secretary of Defense Bob Gates. And what Mr. Gates expressed to us is he says, Lookit, we can go through this process, and we need to go through this process and downsizing our military and downsizing and tightening our belt where we can because of the national debt crisis that we now found ourselves in.

As former Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Mullen advised the President, the biggest threat to America was not a military threat; it was the national debt. And that type of sentiment is shocking to me, and it should scare all of us in that we have to get this fiscal threat under control.

But the conversation with Bob Gates was we're going to do this. But as we were engaging in that conversation, Madam Speaker, he pleaded with us
and said, as we do this, as we make these cuts, please do not take these cuts or these dollars and apply them to other government spending or expand government in other areas because, what he was essentially saying was, if you take the money from defense and you put it in another area and further expand government, every year we are going to have this problem. We are going to compound the problem so that you take money from defense, grow government on other sides of the ledger, or other areas, and you're going to continuously take meat and bone eventually out of the military spending, and you're going to downsize the military to a point where it will not be able to do fundamentally what we need it to do, and that's to protect American citizens.

And the other thing I wanted to comment on, as the gentleman from Kentucky has rightfully pointed out, is that the threat that we face as we downsize and pull back from Iraq and Afghanistan, and I'm glad we're coming to an end in those engagements, and I see the finish line, obviously, in Afghanistan and the Iraqi situation where we have downsized ourselves and pulled ourselves back, and that's good.

But what we cannot do is we cannot get into a situation where we downsize our military, where we put them into a position where they no longer can be effective to annihilate the threats that are out there, because the threats are still there. The threats are still real, and we need the platform across the world to make sure that we have the ability to use the brightest and strongest people we have in America, the men and women of our armed services, so that they have the platforms to go, strike, annihilate that threat, and then come back home.

And that is what we need to make sure we do not cross and we go too far in these cuts, that the men and women, when we ask of them to go and defend America and annihilate those threats so that we can fight them over there, rather than here on American soil, because we never want to have that experience of 9/11 again.

We have to make sure they have the resources and we stand with them so that they have those platforms in which to deploy and protect us, as they have been doing for generations.

With that, I would like to yield to my colleague from Virginia, and I'm so happy he has joined us this evening.

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Mr. REED. I so appreciate the gentleman from Virginia for being down here and expressing the sentiments that he did.

Before I yield to the gentleman from Colorado, I had a thought as you were
expressing your words for the Record and were addressing the Speaker.

Madam Speaker, I think it needs to be clearly laid out because I have seen some reports in our national media that have kind of set the stage a little bit, in my opinion, that what is going on here in Washington, D.C., with the sentiment and the debate is to try to avoid sequestration. Yes, that is true. We're trying to have an open and honest dialogue with all Americans as to how we can make sure that our men and women are not put in harm's way in our armed services, but what we cannot do is in any way deflect from what is causing this debate to occur, Madam Speaker. The reason this debate is occurring is that the national debt is forcing this debate to occur. What we are having is the conversation of how to address the national debt and to make sure that defense and the cuts are part of this conversation, but we cannot go too far and cross that line in the sand that I referred to earlier.

What I am deathly afraid of is that this is going to turn into some folks trying to paint us on this side of the aisle as just trying to avoid making cuts to the military. Yes, we are trying to do what is responsible and make sure that our military is protected, that our men and women are protected, and that we stand with our veterans and stand with the benefits that they have earned and that they so deserve. But we cannot let the debate end there. The debate has to reflect what is causing this.

This is why I truly do believe that Admiral Mullen echoed those words to the President--that the biggest threat to America is our national debt--because with the national debt, what Admiral Mullen was pointing out to Madam Speaker and to everyone across America is that the national debt is going to cause us to have the debate in Washington, D.C., as to whether or not we are cutting too much out of defense and putting our men and women in harm's way. That is where we are in Washington today, and we cannot have the simple conversation that we are trying to avoid cuts for the purposes of avoiding cuts. No. Madam Speaker, we are dealing with a national debt crisis that is forcing us to have this debate.

What we are trying to do on this side of the aisle is to make sure that we do the responsible thing and to make sure that our military is strong--that she is ready to defend us on a moment's notice from any threats, foreign and domestic--and that we do not put men and women in harm's way when we ask them to go and fight for our freedom.

With that, I yield to the gentleman from Colorado, who has joined us this evening on this important topic.

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Mr. REED. I so appreciate the gentleman from Colorado coming and offering his comments on this important issue.

Just briefly before I yield, I am reminded from the gentleman's comments when he referenced leadership and the story that the gentleman tells of the 85-year-old veteran who put his hand on his shoulder and said, We're counting on you, because that is the sentiment that forced or caused me to run for Congress in the beginning and to become a part of this freshman class of 2010.

I look at the national debt, I look at the economic turmoil that we find ourselves in, the fact that we cannot create jobs in America to the level so that people can put food on their table and put a roof over their head and go to bed comfortable and confident that they're going to get up tomorrow with a job to go to. I see the turmoil we face in America right now at the same magnitude as that generational crisis that that 85-year-old war veteran stood up for in World War II to stand as a united country to save Lady America and the freedom that she represents.

What I'm hearing in Washington, D.C.--and I'm sad to say out of the gentlemen in the administration, I see leadership that is trying to divide this country when we face a crisis the magnitude of such that is generational. Ladies and gentlemen of America and Mr. Speaker, the time is now to unite, not divide, and conquer this issue of the national debt because it is forcing us to have the conversation of cuts to our military that is going to put men and women in harm's way. That is not acceptable on our watch.

Mr. Speaker, at this point in time I know the gentleman from Virginia would like to speak, but I'm going to yield the balance of the time to the leader of the freshman class, the gentlelady from Alabama (Mrs. Roby) who scheduled this Special Order.

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