Making Continuing Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2013--Continued

Floor Speech

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the bipartisan, bicameral budget agreement that is currently before the Senate.

This budget agreement, while far from perfect, will help move our economy forward, create certainty that has been sorely lacking for far too long, and save some $23 billion over the next decade. It has been 4 years since the House and Senate have reached an agreement on a budget that sets priorities for Federal spending and revenues. While the 2-year budget agreement worked out between Senator Murray and Congressman Ryan is not what I would have written, it is a step in the right direction. It will prevent Congress from lurching from crisis to crisis, avoid most of the across-the-board, meat-ax cuts known as sequestration, and will allow the Appropriations Committee, of which I am a member, to do its job of developing bills to responsibly fund the government within agreed to limits.

Over the last 9 months since sequestration went into effect, I have met with countless Mainers, including shipyard workers, medical researchers, educators, Border Patrol agents, small business owners affected by the delayed opening and shutdown of Acadia National Park, and nonprofit organizations providing services for the low-income and the elderly. All have shared stories of their personal experiences with how the indiscriminate cuts of sequestration have affected them, their families, and those whom they serve. The sequester has had a detrimental impact on Mainers and our country and is not the right approach to reducing our enormous debt. The $65 billion in sequestration relief provided by this agreement will help mitigate the effect on our economy moving forward and allow Congress to prioritize those programs that are most effective over those that are wasteful, duplicative, or simply no longer necessary.

The agreement will spare the Department of Defense some of the devastating sequestration cuts that Pentagon officials testified could cripple military readiness, harm our national security, and affect thousands of defense-related jobs that are vital to our economy in Maine and in the United States. It also begins to address the harmful impact of indiscriminate cuts made to vital programs such as transportation, education, and biomedical research.

It is critical that Congress continue to work to bring spending under control. Our national debt now stands at an almost incomprehensible $17.2 trillion. This sum, along with rising interest payments, is our legacy to future generations and simply must be responsibly addressed. This agreement will save $23 billion over the next 10 years and help prevent government shutdowns over the next 2 years.

I am, however, deeply disappointed that this agreement includes a reduction in the annual cost of living increase for some current military retirees. We must honor the service and sacrifice of the brave men and women who served our country so that they can continue to have access to the benefits they worked so hard to earn and that were promised to them. The significant changes to military retirement included in this budget single out current retirees and change the rules for them, and that is not fair.

In 2012, I was a member of the Armed Services Committee when we created the Military Retirement and Compensation Modernization Commission with the precise purpose of comprehensively examining this issue in a thorough way that protects current retirees and ensures that the military retirement system is offering the right incentives to recruit and retain the most qualified and experienced servicemembers at a time of budget constraints.

I have raised my concerns with my colleagues about the military retirement provisions in this agreement and will work to ensure that this issue is addressed before it is set to take effect in January 2016. The chairman of the Armed Services Committee has already committed to reviewing this change at the start of next year. I intend to do
everything I can, in conjunction with the leadership of the Armed Services Committee, to identify a more reasonable approach to this problem that would provide the same level of savings while protecting current retirees.

The American people are weary of watching a Congress that can't work. We saw the result of this dysfunction when the government shutdown in October. That is why I worked so hard to forge a compromise that helped get Congress functioning again. We simply must avoid another shutdown and put our Nation back on a sound financial footing. In my judgment, this agreement takes the first steps on a responsible path forward.

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