Amendment No. 15

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I voted against the Budget Control Act as a Member of the House of Representatives because I did not think it was a responsible course for our country. To me, ``sequestration'' is just a fancy term for mindless budget cuts. Unfortunately, sequestration became law and the mandated across-the-board spending cuts went into effect in March of 2013.

I have been fighting to completely eliminate sequestration through a balanced approach to Federal spending and changes to our Tax Code to reduce our budget deficit. That is why I am very disappointed that the Defense authorization bill we are considering today uses a budget gimmick to end sequestration cuts for defense spending but continues to impose mandatory cuts for critical domestic priorities, such as education, health care, and medical research.

This legislation transfers nearly $40 billion in defense spending to a glorified slush fund called the overseas contingency operations account, OCO account, as a way to avoid triggering sequestration cuts. Let's be clear. OCO really stands for ``open checkbook operation'' for our budget, and it stands for ``outrageous copout'' by the GOP.

Instead of cutting funding for defense, Republicans choose instead to cut programs for the defenseless. This is not responsible budgeting; it is a cynical game. The majority is attempting to avoid its responsibilities under sequestration that they themselves demanded be enacted into law just a few years ago. Instead, we get $40 billion in additional spending for the Pentagon and $36 billion in cuts to food stamps, Head Start, preventive health care, and critical social programs.

This is what the game is all about. Sequestration is now being dishonored. They believe they have found an exit ramp for the Defense Department for the cuts that they had accepted as a party--the Republicans--would be imposed if the Democrats would accept in equal measure cuts in social programs. That is the deal, a sword of Damocles hanging over both programs, defense and nondefense--that is civilian and domestic programs--to force us as an institution to work together in a responsible fashion. That was the deal with sequestration. That was the point of it. It was to force us to work together. Instead, the Republicans want an exit ramp for the Defense Department out of the sequestration program while allowing the social programs for the poor, for the sick, and for the elderly to stay inside of these cuts that occur under a sword of Damocles on an automatic basis.

We are endangering our ability to teach our kids the skills they will need for the jobs of the future. We are making it harder for poor families in Massachusetts and across the country to put food on the table. We are jeopardizing the health of grandma and grandpa.

And what are we really protecting when we mandate these cuts for critical social programs but not for our defense spending? We are protecting America's nuclear arsenal budget of $50 billion a year that is filled with waste and can be cut significantly without harming our national security. We spend more money on nuclear weapons than all other countries combined. This is the epitome of overkill. Can we find anything in the nuclear weapons budget that could be cut? Absolutely not, say the Republicans. We have to increase that budget. How are we going to pay for it? We are going to pay for it from poor children, from the elderly in our country.

We spend more money on nuclear weapons just because the Defense Department and the military contractors want them. That is why I have introduced legislation with Jeff Merkley, Bernie Sanders, and Al Franken called the SANE Act, the Smarter Approach to Nuclear Expenditures Act. It would cut $100 billion over the next 10 years from our bloated nuclear weapons budget.

It is time to stop funding a nuclear weapons budget that threatens to undermine our long-term economic security. We should be funding education, not annihilation. We should be helping people find jobs, not helping to build new nuclear weapons. We should be curing diseases, not creating new instruments of death.

Even within our own budget, the Department of Defense should be prioritizing higher pay for marines, not more Minutemen missiles. Somewhere, Dr. Strangelove is smiling from the grave while millions of American families struggle to meet the daily budget they have to balance.

I am a cosponsor of the Reed amendment to stop any increase in this so-called OCO account until the Budget Control Act caps for both defense and nondefense spending are lifted equally.

For those who say the cuts to defense spending endanger our security, I say we face a very real type of economic security threat here at home. Millions of seniors worry about an end to Medicare and Medicaid. Millions of students need help to pay for college. Millions of American workers cannot make ends meet on the minimum wage.

I support the Reed amendment. That will keep America truly safe, healthy, and secure.

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