S.Amdt. 1061

SA 1061. Mr. McCAIN submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by
him to the bill H.R. 2810, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year
2018 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military
construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy,
to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for
other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the end of subtitle G of title X, add the following:

SEC. 1088. SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING UNCONDITIONAL REPEAL
OF THE BUDGET CONTROL ACT OF 2011.

It is the sense of Congress that--
(1) since the enactment of the Budget Control Act of 2011
(Public Law 112-25; 125 Stat. 240) budget requests have been
guided by artificial constraints rather than the realities of
the global strategic environment;
(2) sequestration and artificial budget caps on national
defense, including nondefense agencies that contribute to the
national security, are harmful to the security of the Nation;
(3) for the Armed Forces specifically, such constraints on
the budget, along with a sustained high operational tempo,
have led to a significant degradation in military readiness
in the near term, and the threat that the United States will
fall behind its adversaries in the long-term;
(4) in order to address the degraded state of the Armed
Forces and to stop the erosion of the military advantage of
the United States, Congress believes that the budget should
be based on requirements, rather than arbitrary budget caps;
(5) this Act authorizes $659,000,000,000 in discretionary
spending for defense within the jurisdiction of the Committee
on Armed Services of the Senate, which is spending well above
the current caps under the Budget Control Act of 2011; and
(6) Congress agrees with the statement that included in the
report to accompany S. 1519 (115th Congress), dated July 10,
2017 (Report 115-125) that ``The committee has ongoing
concerns about the negative impact of the Budget Control Act
of 2011 (P.L. 112-25) on the Department of Defense and other
agencies that contribute to our national security and
supports its unconditional repeal.''.
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