Farewell To The Senate
Mr. President, my great friend and colleague from Missouri has an Intelligence Committee meeting to go to. So he went ahead and did his kind tribute before I give my speech, and those who are not aware of that may have thought that maybe…
Mr. President, my great friend and colleague from Missouri has an Intelligence Committee meeting to go to. So he went ahead and did his kind tribute before I give my speech, and those who are not aware of that may have thought that maybe they would be able to get in short tributes and avoid the long farewell speech. That is not true.
I will devote my time to a substantive and very important subject-- the appropriate level of funding for America's military. It is an issue that I have worked on and fought for since I went to the House of Representatives in 1993.
I am grateful for my friend's remarks, and I want to say that I have always enjoyed serving in legislatures, in part because of the collegial nature of the service. When you are done, yes--it is the legislation that you worked on that you want people to remember, but what you remember are the friendships and the associations and the bonds that you have made. And, fortunately, those do not end with your service. I look forward to continuing to visit with my friends in the Senate for years to come. I hope to be able to work with them in other venues on issues of importance to America. Nothing is more important for America than her security.
Mr. President, America has the most capable military in the world by a large margin; in fact we have the best military that has ever served any nation at any time in human history. We should be proud of that; we should especially be proud of the men and women who make America's military what it is. But it would be wrong for us to believe that because our military is the best in the world or even the best ever, that it is as capable as it needs to be. True, America is many times stronger than other nations, but its responsibilities are many times greater as well. If Denmark's military is inadequate, it doesn't matter that much, even to Denmark; if America's military is inadequate, it matters tremendously, first to America, but also to the hopes and aspirations of people throughout the world.
We must understand the importance of this issue very clearly, without the distortions of ideology, politics, expediency, or wishful thinking. Like it or not, the progress of the international order towards peace and democracy depends on the reality and perception of American power. Like it or not, America is the first defender of freedom in the world and therefore always a prime target for those who hate freedom. And like it or not, while there are many tools in the basket of western diplomacy, the underpinning of them all is an American military establishment which the world knows is capable of swiftly, effectively and at minimal cost defeating every substantial threat to our security and to our freedom.
Judged by this standard--the only appropriate standard--the situation is very grave. I have substantial doubt--as good as the men and women are--whether our current military establishment is strong enough. Because of decisions over the last 15 years driven more by budgetary than military considerations, our Army and Navy may well be too small, and much of the equipment in all the services is too old and increasingly unreliable.
Whatever the current status of the military may be, there can be no doubt that without a substantial increase in procurement spending beginning now and sustained over the next 5 to 10 years--an increase, I suggest to the Senate today, that must be measured not in billions but in tens of billions of dollars above current estimates every year--our military will be set back for a generation. We will not be able to modernize our forces to the degree necessary to preserve our security with the necessary margin of safety.
I said that our current military is too small and inadequately equipped to execute the national military strategy. I will not go into detail on this point because my main focus is on the future, but a brief explanation is warranted. The world is, on balance, at least as dangerous today as it was at the end of the Cold War. And we may thank God we are no longer in danger of a massive nuclear attack from the former Soviet Union, nor is a major land war in Europe likely.
Against this, however, we are engaged in a global war on terror that will continue for years to come. The end of the Cold War led to the emergence of dangerous regional conflicts, such as the conflicts in the Balkans. We are in greater danger today of a rogue missile attack than ever been before, and China is emerging as a peer competitor much faster than anyone believed.
These conditions either did not exist, or like the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, were suppressed, during the Cold War. As a result, the operational tempo of our conventional forces--and that means the rate, intensity and duration of their deployment--was far higher beginning in the
mid-1990s, even before September 11, than it had ever been during the Cold War. Yet at the beginning of the 1990s, our forces were 30 to 40 percent bigger than today. For example, the active-duty Army was cut from 18 divisions at the time of Desert Storm to only 10 divisions by 1994. Don't we wish that we had those additional divisions today to relieve the pressure in Iraq. The Navy has gone from 576 ships in the late 1980s to 278 ships today.
At the same time, procurement budgets have been cut substantially, far greater than the cuts in force structure warranted. The contrast in the average annual procurement of major equipment from two periods-- 1975 to 1990 and from 1991 to 2000--is startling. For example, we purchased an average of 78 scout and attack helicopters each year from 1975 to 1990, and only 7 each year from 1991 to 2000. We purchased an average of 238 Air Force fighters each year from 1975 to 1990, and an average of only 28 each year from 1991 to 2000. We purchased five tanker aircraft each year from 1975 to 1990, an average of only one per year from 1991 to 2000.
The implications for these dramatic reductions are profound. Older platforms--that is what the military calls ships, planes, and vehicles--are rather tired and not replaced, which means that force structure is reduced. Military capabilities are reduced. If platforms are not replaced, the average age of the fleet increases, readiness levels drop, and the cost of maintaining the smaller, older inventory climbs rapidly because maintenance costs increase.
For these reasons, I suggest that the current force today is too small and its equipment too old, relative to the requirements of our national military strategy. That strategy calls for a military capable of defending the homeland, sustaining four peacekeeping engagements, and fighting two large-scale regional conflicts, at least, at approximately the same time. We are supposed to be able to do all that at once. I believe the requirements of our military are actually greater than this, but in any event, we cannot execute even these commitments, and we certainly will not be able to do so in the future, within an acceptable level of risk, unless at least the Army is made bigger and unless all three services have the money to robustly recapitalize their major platforms with the most modern equipment.
For years, the various services, in response to pressure from political authorities to reduce the budget below what they needed, have delayed or cancelled new programs. They have been reducing the number of new ships or planes they say they need, kicking crucial decisions down the budgetary road, robbing Peter to pay Paul, and otherwise trying to avoid confronting the approaching funding crisis.
That crisis is upon us now. We are entering the crucial phase of recapitalization. Beginning with the next budget and intensifying over the next 5 to 10 years, the services are scheduled to bring online the new platforms that will anchor American security for the next generation. No one can say these programs are unneeded. The Navy must buy new destroyers, must ramp up procurement of Virginia-class submarines, must finalize the design and buy large numbers of Littoral Combat Ships and design and build a new CG-X cruiser.
The Air Force must buy large numbers of the F-22. That is our new air-superiority fighter. We must maintain the ability to have complete air superiority over any combat theater. The Air Force must buy large numbers of Joint Strike Fighters or equivalent aircraft. In addition, the Air Force must buy out its airlift requirement. That is how we transport personnel, equipment and supplies from one place to another in the world. It must build a new generation of tankers, must design and build a long-range strike bomber to replace the B-52. Our B-52 inventory is 45 years old.
The Army must rebuild, modernize or replace almost its entire capital stock of ground combat and support vehicles including many of its tanks.
The current procurement budget for all three services is $80.9 billion. Simple budgetary mathematics tells us that the services cannot possibly meet their crucial requirements without an average budget over the next 5 to 10 years that I estimate is at least 30 billion dollars higher than what we are now spending.
Perhaps I have gone into more detail than the Senate is willing to indulge me in already, but I want to look in some depth at the situation of the Navy. Here I speak from what I know because I have been the chairman of the Subcommittee on Seapower for the last 4 years. Currently, there are 278 ships in the U.S. Navy. The Navy shipbuilding plan calls for 326 ships by the year 2020, eventually settling down to an average of 313 ships. The plan actually calls for fewer aircraft carriers, a substantial drop in attack submarines, and fewer major surface combatants, but it attempts to make up for these reductions with modern destroyers, more capable submarines and what it calls pre- positioning ships that allow us to establish sea bases, from which to project forces ashore, as well as a whole new class of smaller multi- mission modular vessels called Littoral Combat Ships. There is no margin whatever for error in this plan. It is, at best, the minimum necessary for our security.
The Chief of Naval Operations--that is the admiral who leads the Navy--has estimated the plan will require a shipbuilding budget of $13.3 billion for fiscal year 2008, the upcoming budget year. That is $5 billion more than what was spent this year on ship building. His plan calls for that figure to escalate to $17.5 billion by 2012. I believe these figures are too conservative. It is a good-faith effort to calculate what we need but too conservative. I think the plan will require billions more each year to execute. Both the Congressional Budget Office and the Congressional Research Service agree. In any event, I say on my oath as a Senator, that it will be utterly impossible, at current levels of defense spending, for the Navy to reach and sustain the $13.3 billion figure, to say nothing of the even higher sums required in the outyears of the 5-year defense plan and beyond.
Beginning no later than 2009, there will be a growing shortfall in the ship-building accounts, in addition to an annual shortfall of $1 billion to $2 billion in Navy aviation procurement. I expect the total deficiency to be no less than $45 billion over the fiscal year 2008 to fiscal year 2016 period; and remember, this assumes that the 313-ship Navy is sufficient to protect American security, an optimistic assumption.
Lest the Senate get lost in all the figures, let me sum it up this way. The Navy, responding to budgetary pressure, has formulated a plan for a 313-ship Navy in the future which, frankly, may be inadequate; the Navy estimates a figure for funding the plan which independent authorities, using long-term historical cost data, believe is far too low. And yet without substantial increases in the Navy's procurement budget, it is a dead certainty that even that figure cannot be sustained.
As a practical matter, the expected shortfall means the sacrifice of two to three attack subs and two to three surface combatants, a reduction in purchases of the Littoral Combat Ships, and delays to the Sea Basing Program and the new CG-X Cruiser Program, which is necessary for missile defense.
The short of it is that the Navy needs at least an $8 billion increase per year in procurement above current estimates. The Marines need about $3 billion more. It is not necessary to go into the same level of detail with regard to the budgetary picture for the other services. The pain has been spread fairly evenly across the service, so they are in roughly in the same situation. That means a procurement shortfall over the next 10 years of at least $30 billion per year adjusted for inflation. Most independent experts believe the number is far higher.
For example, the CBO estimates that the overall defense budget shortfall will be no less than $52 billion per year. We should add to this the fact that the active-duty Army is clearly too small, as we have learned in Iraq. Even in an age of transformation and nonlinear battlefields, there are still times when America needs to put large numbers of boots on the ground, particularly in the post-September 11 period. The United States needs the ability to carry on sustained, large-scale peacekeeping or low-intensity combat operations, without having to send the same units three or four times to a combat theater over the duration of a mission. A nation of our size and strength should not have to use essentially its whole active-duty Army,
much of its Marine Corps, and many of its Reserves to sustain 130,000 troops over time in a combat view.
In 1992--which was right after Desert Storm--the Defense Department stated a requirement of 12 Active-Duty Army divisions. That was before the increases in operational tempo of the 1990s and before the global war on terror. The Army should surely be at least 12 divisions today. It costs approximately $2 billion to stand up and sustain an addition to the Army or Marine Corps of division strength so we need to invest $4 billion per year in increased force structure for the Army, in addition to the $30 billion more in new procurement funding.
So to sustain our military over the next generation at the appropriate level, we need to increase procurement spending and spending on the size of the Army by about $34 billion per year. And that is above current baseline estimates. It would have to be sustained over the life of the current defense plan and beyond.
I want to emphasize that this is, of necessity, a ballpark figure. It is always difficult to predict precisely the cost of new programs--some of which are in the design phase, particularly given the uncertainties associated with developing technologies. We will be acquiring this equipment over the next 10 to 20 years and needs in technology are going to change. We must confront the fact that whatever the necessary amount turns out precisely to be, the procurement budgets we are projecting today are fundamentally inadequate. We have to ramp up spending. We must begin now. And we have to accept the fact that it will not be cheap.
I, also, want to make clear that this additional $34 billion must come from an increased overall defense budget. There may be some who say that it is possible to cannibalize the rest of the defense budget to produce all or most of this additional procurement funding. That is a dangerous fantasy. The money cannot come from the supplemental appropriations bills. Those are necessary to pay the day-to-day costs of the war and may not have been adequate to do that. The money cannot come from reducing the readiness budget because that budget is overstressed already. It cannot come from reducing the number of service personnel because the military is already too small. It can't come from reducing salary and benefits. We have to retain the best people. Besides, Congress is far more likely, and properly in my view, to increase personnel benefits rather than reduce them. Take a look at the last 7 years. Total spending on defense health care, for example, increased from $17.5 billion in fiscal year 2000 to $37 billion in fiscal year 2006--an increase of more than 100 percent over the last 7 years, appropriately so.
The men and women of America's military deserve good salaries and benefits, and so do those who are retired. The savings from base closing is not going to supply the additional funds. Those are highly speculative. They will not occur, if at all, for many years, and they are unlikely to be more than a billion dollars per year.
Some say we can save money by reducing congressional earmarks or additions to the defense budget, and within limits that is true. But the total of such earmarks is no more than $3 billion to $4 billion per year. Realistically, Congress is not going to give up all of them, and at least some number of them are clearly justified because they simply restore to the budget items that our service chiefs desperately wanted and omitted only because of budgetary pressure.
Still others will say we can get the necessary additional funding by lowering the cost of new programs through procurement reform. I am all for procurement reform. I have been for it ever since Secretary Bill Perry, who was a great Secretary of Defense, proposed it over 10 years ago. We have had several waves of procurement reform since then. Several Defense Secretaries have all championed its virtues. We continue to hold oversight hearings to pressure the defense industry to lower costs. We keep trying to catch people in the Department who might be violating procurement regulations. I have chaired some of those hearings.
Meanwhile, the cost of new programs keeps going up. I suggest the reasons have less to do with deficiencies in the procurement system, bad as it is, than with the stress on the industrial base and on the military caused by the budgets that are consistently too low and unstable.
One of the arguments supporting reductions in force in the past has been that transformational technology and tactics can empower the military to do more with less. The idea is to make each servicemember, each plane, ship, and vehicle less vulnerable so we lose fewer of them, and more lethal so we need fewer of them. Within limits, that is sometimes true. But the best technology costs money, and changing technology, tactics, and doctrine makes it more difficult to fix stable requirements. Program instability costs money, too.
Here is an example. The Navy originally planned to procure 32 DD(X) next-generation destroyers. The ship has a truly advanced design. It is a marvel of transformational technology. But its unique capabilities have driven the per ship cost to about $3 billion. As a result, the Navy plans to procure only seven new destroyers. The problem is that the complexity of the ship's design, the unprecedented capabilities of the vessel, and the high price of the best technologies, have all driven up cost to the point where the ship is impossible to procure in sufficient numbers at current budget levels.
Another example, the Air Force desperately needs more air lift, and it also needs a new tanker aircraft. The Air Force shoulders much of the mobility mission, and it also performs the mid-air refueling mission. Normally, the Air Force would simply buy more C-17 aircraft. It is a perfectly good, modern cargo aircraft. Then the Air Force would design and procure a new tanker. But because the service is under tremendous pressure to save money, it has decided to develop a cargo- tanker, combining the two missions into one aircraft. The service assures us that it is not going to have any bells and whistles on the new plane, and the aircraft will be low in cost.
Surely, the concept of a cargo-tanker allows the Air Force to claim that it will be able to perform both of these missions while relieving some of the pressure on its budget. But, again, reality must and will eventually bite. As requirements build and changing technologies force changes in design, the odds are very high that the cost of the new aircraft--if it is to do the combined mission it is supposed to do-- will go up substantially.
The problem of cost is exacerbated by the stress on the defense industrial base. Procurement budgets have been too low for 15 years and because of budgetary pressured they constantly change. The Department regularly projects what it intends to procure in the outyears of its defense plan but then often makes last-minute cuts and changes.
Under those circumstances, it is no surprise that contractors are not investing sufficiently in the defense industrial base. It is shrinking, and it is undercapitalized. That means fewer competitors, more sole- source contracts, less research, and, therefore, higher costs. No amount of oversight, reform, or pressure on procurement officials can change that.
The good news is that a robust and consistent commitment to adequate funding would soon begin to reverse these trends. Again, I am all for improvements in the way we design and build new systems, and those improvements can save money. But they cannot work miracles. Sufficient and stable funding is not only consistent with transformation and efficient use of the taxpayers' dollars, it is necessary to both. If Congress were to commit to my proposal, for example, the service chiefs and the defense industry would know that substantial new money was coming--enough to make it at least plausible they could produce and acquire the systems they need. They could budget for the long range, knowing that funding would be stable. They could work together in a way that would reduce costs instead of trying to pull money away from other services or maneuver year to year just to keep vital programs alive, and often, in a way, that ends up costing the taxpayers more in the long run.
We must stop thinking that facing reality and funding our military adequately is beyond the reach of this great Nation. Yes, the Federal Government has fiscal problems. Yes, the two
major parties have very different views on what to do about those problems, but nobody can or does claim that the defense budget is the cause.
Right now, we are spending 3.8 percent of our gross domestic product on the regular defense budget. That is a very low percentage historically, far less than we spent at any time during the Cold War. Under President Carter, we spent 4.6 percent of the GDP on national defense.
If we spent only 4.2 percent now, we could easily fund what I have proposed. We would have a fighting chance to support our service men and women with the equipment they need and deserve. We could sustain the military power that the last two Presidents have used to protect our freedom and stabilize the post-Cold-War world. We would send the clearest possible message to both our friends and enemies, and to those nations who are deciding now whether they are going to be a friend or enemy, that whatever happens, whatever the direction our foreign policy takes, the United States has the ability to sustain our freedom and the hope of freedom for the world.
To those who worry about the price of strength, I say there is a greater price to be paid for weakness. How many conflicts will we invite, how much instability will we engender, if we allow this restless and troubled world to doubt America's ability to defend herself?
Let's look at the risks of alternative courses of action. If we adopt the course I suggest, and it turns out that I was wrong, all we will have lost is a fraction of our wealth wealth that would be spent in this country on products produced by our workers, for a margin of safety that, in the end, we did not need. But if we stay on our current course, and it turns out that I was right, how much will we pay then in lost lives and treasure, fighting in conflicts that a policy of strength would have deterred?
How big will the deficit become then, in a world made less stable by American weakness? What effect will that have on the economy, and not just the economy, but on the hopes and opportunities of the next generation--our children and our grandchildren--who have the right to expect that we are looking out for them?
Twenty-five years ago, our country was also in a difficult situation. Our enemies doubted American resolve. They were challenging us on a number of fronts. We had just gone through a period of chronic underfunding of the military, probably worse than what has happened recently. As a result, the force was hollow, unable to reliably perform the missions necessary to protect America. That is why the tragic Desert One mission went so wrong in the desert during the Iranian hostage crisis.
When President Reagan assumed office, he faced the situation squarely and honestly, and with the support of a Democratic House and Republican Senate, he secured two double-digit increases in the overall defense budget, and reasonable increases for several years thereafter. On the strength of that bipartisan commitment, America's service men and women and America's defense industrial base transformed our military into the truly dominant force that fought and won Operation Desert Storm.
A united government sent the message to friend and foe alike that whatever our differences about foreign policy, America was still willing to pay the price of freedom. It is not too much to say that the decisions made in 1981 and 1982 laid the basis for the collapse of the Soviet Union, the success of Operation Desert Storm, and the benefits of peace and security that we enjoyed throughout the 1990s.
With this speech, I bring my career in the Senate to a close. I believe I can do no greater service to my country than to urge Senators not to be dissuaded by the counsels of those who say that what I have proposed cannot be done.
At the beginning of my remarks I stated that America's service men and women are the finest who have ever served in any military on behalf of any nation at any time. I should have included their families as well. I realized that when today, just a few hours ago, I had the privilege of meeting with Dana Lamberson and her two children, Kelsi and Evan.
Mrs. Lamberson's husband, SFC Randall Lamberson, was killed in Iraq only 8 months ago. Mrs. Lamberson told me that before her husband deployed, their family openly discussed the sacrifice which he, and they, might be called on to make. I asked her how she was able to bear her grief with such grace and fortitude. She told me that when she was tempted to be discouraged, she remembered what her husband had always said when times were tough: that ``life is only as difficult as you make it.''
Mr. President, I have met thousands of Americans over the last 4 years like the Lamberson family, not just soldiers and their families, but people from every walk of life, who live each day with courage, resilience, and optimism. Because of them, I believe with all my heart that America's time of leadership is not done.
I ask the Senate to honestly face the true cost of defending this Nation. If we do, if we carry that burden with confidence, we will find the weight of it to have been a small thing compared to the blessings of peace and liberty we will secure for ourselves, and the hope we will give to freedom-loving people all over the world.
Mr. President, I cannot close without thanking my dedicated staff who served the people of Missouri so well over the last 4 years, who have kept me going, kept me on time, who are largely responsible for the many pieces of legislation which Senator Bond was kind enough to mention. I just ask the Senate to indulge me for another moment or two because I am going to read their names. I think they deserve it: Mark Strand, my chief of staff; Cortney Brown, my scheduler; Les Sealy, our great office manager who always got us what we needed; Brian Anderson, our IT manager. I am glad he understood it because I never do.
I thank our legislative staff: Brett Thompson, legislative director; Faith Cristol, our great legislative counsel; and my legislative assistants: Lindsey Neas, Katie Smith, Heath Hall, Jesse Appleton, Katie Duckworth, Christopher Papagianis, Shamed Dogan, and John Cox, who works so hard and so well on veterans issues, a man who has served this country in many different venues; Andy Karellas, Martha Petkovich, and Sarah Cudworth, who did legislative correspondence, grants and case work; Peter Henry, who managed the mail; Sarah Barfield, my staff assistant; two great Navy Fellows: CDR Dan Brintzinghoffer and LCDR Lori Aguayo, two patriots and both outstanding officers; and Mark Hegerle, my Energy Fellow who came over from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission just in time to help me make a real difference on the Energy bill.
I want to thank our press shop: Rich Chrismer, my great communications director; Erin Hamm, and Andrew Brandt.
Casework--we handled over 10,000 cases. I am a big believer in casework. This is a big government, and navigating it is hard, and if we could help, we wanted to help. I thank Nora Breidenbach, Jenny Bickel, Abby Pitlick, Debbie Dornfeld, and Jessica Van Beek.
And the State staff, we always tried to integrate the work of the State staff and the Washington staff, and I think we did it. I thank Gregg Keller, our State director; in St. Louis: Kacky Garner, my district director; Peggy Barnhart; Rachel McCombs; and Angel McCormick Franks; in Kansas City: Joe Keatley, my great district director; Danny Pfeifer; Emily Seifers; Greg Porter; and Erick Harris; in Jefferson City: Donna Spickert, who was the State capitol director; and Becky Almond, my instate scheduler, as well as a great staff assistant; in Springfield: Terry Campbell, the district director; Christopher Stone; and Coriann Gastol; and in Cape Girardeau: Jeff Glenn, who directed that office; and Liz Mainord.
I also want to thank, as other Senators have done, my family, my wife, obviously, in particular, who has shared the highs and lows of this job, and my wonder kids.
Mr. President, it remains only for me to thank my colleagues in the Senate for the many kindnesses, personal and professional, which they have shown me and my family over the last 4 years.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.