Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, we have a huge deficit. Everybody knows that. We have a terribly enormous debt. Everybody knows that. None other than the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State have said that our national debt is, in fact, a national security issue and we need to deal with it. And we are. We are reducing spending in a number of Departments in a number of areas. We're talking about reforming entitlement programs in order to save them. And we are asking lots of Departments and lots of areas to reduce waste and duplication and to operate more efficiently and do the things they are doing with less money.

There is no reason, Mr. Chairman, that we should not look for said duplication, said waste and ask the Department of Defense to do the same so that we can attack this deficit and this debt.

This amendment would terminate the Human Social and Cultural Behavior Modeling program at the Department of Defense. Now as kind of obtuse as the name of that program sounds, I'm actually not going to criticize the value of some of the information in the program of the Defense Department. The reason I'm offering this amendment to terminate this program is because it's entirely duplicative, because these things are done elsewhere and by other people, and we don't need to spend the millions and millions of dollars that we are currently in the Department of Defense on grant programs.

There are currently university research initiatives at the Army, Navy and the Department of the Air Force that are duplicative of this general Defense Department. There are Department events, university and industry research centers which conduct university research which can and do some of this work and are totally duplicative of what this program does.

And I'm going to read you a list of things that this program does research on. And as I read you this list, think about how universities in the normal course of their business know this stuff, research this stuff, figure this stuff out, and we don't have to have a separate program to do it. Topography, that is part of this program, small business innovation, human behavior, socioeconomics, sociocultural response studies, engineering, globalization, population research, morality and values, and the quality of government, politics and education.

Now, these are all things I'm sure the Department of Defense needs to know to do their job, but they can get this information from any number of other programs currently in the Department of Defense or from universities that are doing this research on their own. This will save millions of dollars and help with one of the greatest national security threats we have, which is our deficit and our debt.

I reserve the balance of my time.

May I inquire as to how much time I have remaining.

I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate my colleague from Texas's remarks. Again, just to reiterate, I am not challenging the value or the use to the Department of Defense of some of the information. What I am challenging is whether we need an entirely separate program. We have been talking about the Department of Education, multiple programs in that Department that do the same thing, the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture. All kinds of Departments have duplicative programs because we built these things up over the years.

This is one of those programs. None other than the Heritage Foundation has identified this as a program that is entirely duplicative and that this work is and can be done and is being done through other DOD programs or for private research that doesn't have to be funded by DOD. And I think everyone here knows the Heritage Foundation is not exactly a bastion of anti-defense or weak on our national security.

So my argument here is that if we don't look at this sort of thing in every Department, including in the Department of Defense, we're never going to get a handle on this deficit. There is waste in Defense too. There is duplication in Defense too. And we need to start to begin to reduce it. I think this is a small step. I would ask for Members' support.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, as identified during the last amendment, we have debt, we have deficit, we need to look for things in the Department of Defense as well where we can look for efficiencies and expense reductions and still defend the country.

Currently in the Department of Defense, we have somewhere approaching 800,000 civilian employees. Let me repeat that. In the Department of Defense today, we have approximately 800,000 full-time, nonuniformed civilian employees. This does not include the roughly 1.5 million men and women in uniform, and it does not include all of the defense contractors. And I would love to tell you how many of those there are, but because we do not audit the Department of Defense, that information is not available so I don't know.

So we have 800,000 people not uniformed working in the Department of Defense, not doing any of the stuff done by the contractors. Now, I could go through a long analysis of do we really need one nonuniformed person for every two uniformed people in the Department of Defense. Do we really need that many? But this amendment is very small in its scope and very small in what it intends to do.

All it says is let's reduce that 800,000 head count by 1 percent a year for the next 5 years. So all this amendment says is: Next year, can we accomplish the mission of the U.S. military in the Department of Defense without touching anything having to do with a single man or woman in uniform, but with 99 percent of the nonuniformed personnel that we currently have? Somehow, I do not believe that is going to devastate our ability to defend this country. It is 1 percent a year for the next 5 years.

So it is saying, 5 years from now, yes, we will have to do with 95 percent of the nonuniformed personnel. But I think that is something we can do and something, again, where we can begin to save some money and deal with our greatest national security threat, which is our debt.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate my colleague's comments; and, frankly, I don't disagree that it is arbitrary. I would argue that perhaps how we got to this 800,000 was not by anybody doing a great deal of planning either, so perhaps that is arbitrary.

But, you know, if you want someone to start to be more efficient, you have to set some goals. You have to set some targets. This number has been growing, and growing steadily for years. Probably for decades, but it has certainly been growing for years. It has been unchecked. There has been no real review or evaluation of it.

What I am trying to do here, and I am not arguing that there is anything scientific to the 1 percent, but it is to say: Let's start to get this under control. Let's start to evaluate this. And you know what? If we need to reevaluate it, we can reevaluate it. But let's say to the Department of Defense: You know what? This is a lot of people. We think that you can get by with less.

I have talked to a number of uniformed personnel who believe a lot of these people actually get in their way, and they would much prefer that some of them were not there because they actually create a bureaucracy that interferes with the ability of the uniformed people to accomplish their mission.

So what this amendment is trying to do, it is saying: Let's get into this and let's set a target and let's see if we can't get there, and let's see if we can't save some money along the way.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate both gentlemen's comments and their remarks and their tone and their tenor. I respectfully disagree because I think that, again, not a single uniformed person is being affected. This has nothing to do with that. I think 1 percent at least sends a message and is a start. And it is difficult to argue that it is going to devastate anything. I would ask support on the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I rise in support of H.R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act.

In 2009, the Administration announced their ``National Program'' to regulate fuel economy. But if you read beyond the press releases touting the ``National Program'' you'd find that it wasn't one program at all. In reality, the so-called ``National Program'' is made up of three different fuel economy programs, administered by three different agencies--NHTSA, EPA, and the California Air Resources Board--under three different sets of rules, pursuant to three different laws.

Why on earth do we need three different agencies regulating the same thing? The truth is, we don't. H.R. 910 would end the regulatory duplication, and the millions in taxpayer dollars wasted on such redundancy by EPA.

Mr. Chair, as the old Beatles song goes, ``one and one and one is three.'' The CAFE program plus an EPA program plus a California program adds up to three different programs. That's what we have now, but we must do better for consumers, who will ultimately have to bear the cost of all this unnecessary regulation. H.R. 910 returns the regulation of fuel economy back to one standard, with rules written by Congress, not unelected bureaucrats. I urge a ``yes'' vote on this important legislation.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 1, rule I, I demand a vote on agreeing to the Speaker's approval of the Journal.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

I thank the lady from Tennessee for yielding. You know, I came down here because I heard the opposition to this amendment decrying about the devastation that will occur to the country if this amendment were to pass, and I would like to make just two points.

One, discretionary spending in this country has increased 38 percent in the last 4 years, 38 percent. Has Americans' spending increased 38 percent? Has Americans' income increased 38 percent? No. All this amendment does is it

asks the government to spend what it spent 2 years ago.

Most Americans would probably like to do that. Why is that such a devastation? But there's even a greater reason. We have a $1.5 trillion going to $1.6 trillion deficit. If we do not get this debt under control--and fast--we will be making cuts of 50 percent overnight because of the debt crisis that will hit when people stop buying our debt. Madam Chair, this does not threaten government services. It is actually a step toward saving them from the debt crisis that is ahead of us.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Chairwoman, Secretary Gates and Secretary Clinton have said that our debt is a national security issue. Indeed, it is. They are correct. When you look at our debt, it is a function of multiple deficits. The largest spending item we have in the Federal Government are the entitlements, but number two is defense.

We cannot reduce our deficit substantially and deal with our debt problem without reducing the costs of our number one and number two expenses. This amendment deals with number two, which are the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security. In the bill before us, those Departments have a roughly 1 percent increase in spending. We are trying to reduce the deficit here, and we have increased Defense and Homeland Security.

What this amendment would do is turn that 1 percent increase into a roughly 2\1/2\ percent decrease in spending. Now, it is across the board, although it does not affect overseas contingency operations. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be unaffected. However, the opposition will come up in a moment and decry how this is somehow going to devastate the country and make us unable to defend ourselves. I submit that that is not the case, and let me give you a few reasons.

First of all, this funding is 98 percent of last year's funding. Any organization, including the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, ought to be able to complete their missions and serve their constituencies for 98 percent of last year's costs.

Second, there are 755,000 civilian employees in the Department of Defense. That is one civilian employee for every two uniformed personnel. Do we really need that many civilian employees in the Department of Defense?

Third, there are many weapons systems funded in the Defense Department which the Defense Department does not want. They are there because of influential Members of Congress who have put them in. Defense has always been the most earmarked section of the entire budget.

Fourth, there are many items in Defense that are unrelated to defense. Spenders in this House have figured out that if they put in unrelated spending--environmental spending, medical research, other things in the Department of Defense--it will be shielded from being reduced. That should not be the case.

Fifth, since 2006, defense spending has increased by 32 percent, in a period of almost no inflation, while the war in Iraq was winding down.

We must learn how to defend this country for less, and we can do that. There are plenty of things we can do. We need to defend our country against vulnerabilities; but our debt, which is now 47 percent held by foreigners--and that percentage is increasing--is a greater threat to the security of this country than any aircraft carrier. It is a greater threat than any military force out there. We have to deal with that, but we can't deal with this debt unless we include the large spending in the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security and defend this country for less.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, may I inquire how much time I have remaining?

Madam Chair, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan).

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Madam Chairman, I won't take anywhere near that time, just simply to get back to the amendment offered by the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Flake, which is the matter before us right now, and to say that I support this amendment, Madam Chairman.

The gentleman has very properly, I think, brought up something that the Secretary of Defense has said is one of the areas in which the defense budget can be reduced and we can save money. The greatest threat to the national security of this country today is our debt. The Secretary of Defense has said that. He has said certainly it is a national security threat, as has the Secretary of State. So we need to get this debt down, we need to get this deficit down, we need to do it in every single area of the budget.

I think the gentleman from Arizona's amendment is very proper and a very appropriate one, and I support it.

Offered By: Mr. Campbell

Amendment No. 518: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Campbell

Amendment No. 519: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Mr. Speaker, the President today released his budget, and it is a pretty ugly thing.

We reach another record deficit next year in his projection and we have deficits that go on as far as the eye can see. We are rapidly heading towards the time when our national debt will equal the economy; 100 percent of GDP. The last time that occurred was in 1944 and 1945, when we were fighting World War II.

There is a big difference between now and then. Then, we were fighting a war. At some point, that war would end and the spending would drop. In fact, it did. After 1945, we didn't reach that level of spending again for 30 years. However, this time, the spending is projected to increase every year as far as the eye can see.

Then, we financed this debt by Americans through war bonds. Americans financed their own debt. Today, 47 percent of our debt is held by foreigners. We are giving them a power and a control over us. But almost more importantly, back then we were fighting a world war to preserve freedom and our way of life, and that's what drove the deficit and the debt.

Today, our deficit and our debt are driven largely as we create bureaucracies, free health care and free retirement plans that the person receiving them doesn't have to pay for, and, in fact, no one in this generation is going to have to pay for. This debt is from the wrong place, it is for the wrong reasons, and it will be with us until as far as we can see.

This debt is now the greatest threat to the prosperity, security, and hegemony of the United States of America.

Our economy is like a patient, like a person. We have an infection; we have an infection of debt. If allowed to continue, that infection will kill the patient. In the last 4 years, the Democratic Congress and this President in the last 2 years have made this infection much worse, and it has grown and it has festered such that the condition of the patient is substantially worse than just 4 years ago. We have to kill this infection before it kills us.

We have three strong antibiotics we can give it. First, reduce spending. Second, raise revenues by growing the economy. Raising tax rates at this level will not raise revenue. And, reform the entitlements, which are the majority of our spending.

This week, we will start with the first of those antibiotics. We will begin for the first time in a long time to actually reduce spending instead of just to talk about how much it's going to grow.

Now, there are those who are decrying on both sides of the aisle how much we are cutting or reducing. I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the bill that's coming before us tomorrow doesn't actually cut enough.

You know, we have increased discretionary spending--that's the spending over which Congress has annual control--by 38 percent in the last 4 years, since 2006. Now, in that 4 years there hasn't been a lot of inflation. Mr. Speaker, have most Americans seen their spending increase by 38 percent? Have most Americans seen their income go up by 38 percent? No. Was the government so bad 4 years ago when we were spending 38 percent less that it couldn't function? Were there great tragedies and trials on the street that we don't have today because we increased spending by 38 percent? No. We have to act and we have to reduce spending, and there is plenty of spending to reduce.

Mr. Speaker, this debt is our greatest national security threat. This debt is the challenge of our generation. We must be up to that challenge. Let us not fail. Let us begin now.

Offered By: Mr. Campbell

Amendment No. 6: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Sec.__. The total amount otherwise made available by this

Act (except for amounts for the Departments of Defense,

Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs) is hereby reduced by

$16,000,000,000.

Offered By: Mr. Campbell

Amendment No. 7: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet on Monday next, when it shall convene at noon for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to commend Broadcom, one of the world's leading chip makers with headquarters in my congressional district, on their announcement of the Broadcom MASTERS (Math, Applied Science, Technology and Engineering for Rising Stars), a science fair program designed for students in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades.

The Broadcom Foundation has partnered with the Society for Science and the Public, SSP, to sponsor and run science fairs, which will involve over 100,000 students from over 350 SSP science fairs around the nation.

Of all those participating, judges will nominate 7,500 contestants to compete and, from that group, they will select 300 semi-finalists. Once the semi-finalists compete, 30 students will be chosen for the finals, which will occur in Washington, DC, in the fall of 2011.

The winner will receive a $25,000 scholarship from the Henry Samueli Foundation--Mr. Samueli is the founder of Broadcom.

I commend Broadcom for its efforts to provide this exciting opportunity for middle school students to showcase their interest in science, technology, engineering and math--what is commonly referred to as STEM education.

STEM education is an area in which the United States led the world for many years, but lately, has been consistently outperformed by several countries. This must not continue. America literally cannot afford to lag behind our competitors in math and science education. There are serious consequences for this failure and they impact the future of this country. We must be proactive in addressing the crisis of a shrinking next generation of American engineers, scientists, mathematicians, and chip makers, like those that propel a company such as Broadcom to success.

Programs like the Broadcom MASTERS will help to both ignite the imaginations of American students and show that math and science have fascinating applications in the real world.

Madam Speaker, I want to express my thanks to the Broadcom Foundation and the Society for Science and the Public for their continued good works, and I look forward to these exciting and inspiring science fairs.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize a constituent of mine, Pastor Shawn Black of Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California. Pastor Black served as our guest Chaplain this morning. Eight years ago, he founded Project Prayer Flag, a non-profit organization which has supported over 700,000 American military personnel by providing care packages and support for troops' families. Pastor Black himself volunteered for military service at age 17, and in addition to his ministry, has spent over twenty years in law enforcement, including a stint as a Federal Air Marshal from 2002-2005. I would like to thank him for opening this session of Congress today in prayer, as well as for his many years of dedicated service to our country.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to First Sergeant Quintin Waterman, United States Army. First Sergeant Waterman has served a distinguished career in the United States Army, spanning nearly thirty years, concluding here in the United States House of Representatives as the very first senior Non-Commissioned Officer to serve as a Legislative Liaison Officer. Over the course of the 28 years which First Sergeant Waterman has spent in uniform serving his country, he has been cited by his command as exhibiting outstanding initiative, leadership, and professionalism in all of his actions. In doing so, he has made significant contributions to the welfare of Soldiers, and their families, to say nothing of the service he has provided the people of this nation.

During First Sergeant Waterman's career, he has served with distinction as a military language instructor, teaching Russian at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in Monterey, California. It was there that he was selected to serve as a Brigade Command Language Program Manager. In this capacity, he was responsible for the training and professional development of four subordinate Command Language Program Managers at the largest Command Language Program in the Army's Intelligence and Security Command.

Following his assignment at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, First Sergeant Waterman was selected as First Sergeant for B Company, 741st Military Intelligence Battalion. There he led a company of over 112 Soldiers in a number of occupational specialties, providing direct support throughout the Signals and Intelligence Directorate of the National Security Agency.

He later performed with distinction at the Deployed Security Operations Center for U.S. Central Command as the Chief of Mission for Counter-Terrorism, Force Protection, and Indications and Warnings in direct support of Operation Enduring Freedom. There is no doubt that Master Sergeant has demonstrated himself as a natural and selfless leader who is willing to lead from the front.

Perhaps his most notable service however, was as the very first senior non-commissioned officer in the United States Army to serve as a Legislative Liaison Officer in the U.S. House of Representatives, a post for which he was hand selected for by the Sergeant Major of the Army. As a Legislative Liaison Officer, First Sergeant Waterman was in a unique position to serve as a conduit between the Army, Members of Congress, and their staffs. This is a crucial role which allows the Army to train, equip, and sustain an Army, especially an Army in the time of war.

I want to thank First Sergeant Waterman for his tireless and selfless service to the people of our great nation. His career and performance has brought distinction upon himself, the commands he has served under, and the entire United States Army. It is Soldiers like First Sergeant Waterman who make up the finest

Army the world has ever seen and I am grateful for his service.