Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, pending before the U.S. Senate today are two of the biggest appropriations bills we will consider this year. As Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, mentioned, they are the eighth and ninth bills we will pass.

One of those bills I have had a direct interest in as the ranking Democrat on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. We are about to break a record. This spending bill for the Department of Defense is one of the largest increases we have seen in any given year. This bill is $607 billion for day-to-day operations of the Department of Defense and another $68 billion for something known as Overseas Contingency Operations, which is just another category of spending. This one bill-- one bill of the Department of Defense--comprises 49 percent of all of discretionary spending of the Government of the United States of America. Almost half of our discretionary budget is going to be spent in this bill. Accompanying it is the bill on health and education, which is the second largest appropriations bill we consider. So between the two of these bills, we are talking about a massive government expenditure.

Let's reflect on that expenditure for a moment.

There is no replacement for a strong national defense, but we should ask ourselves why. Why does it cost the American taxpayer so much to defend America?

The last budget deal, under which we are working here, provided a near-record increase for the Department of Defense. Going back almost 50 years, you can only find two or three other increases comparable. We are talking about a massive expenditure and a substantial, historic increase in the Department of Defense.

Why? Because we face enemies in this world. I am not naive about that. I believe it. When it comes to superpowers threatening us, at the top of the list is Russia, and second on the list is China.

How much do they spend, when it comes to the defense budgets of those two countries--our two hard targets, the most threatening nations when it comes to the United States? That is where you have to step back and shake your head and say that can't be true. But it is true.

The Russian defense budget from 2017 to 2018 is $78 billion. Remember my earlier figures? We are going to be spending $700 billion, and their annual budget is $78 billion.

How can there be such a disparity? Some people have argued that it is because of the accounting methods. It is the fact that Russian soldiers are paid dirt wages and ours, thank goodness, are paid just compensation and are given benefits. I accept all of that, but it still doesn't explain an almost 10-to-1 ratio of spending in the United States against spending in Russia.

What about China? There is another nation that we are worried about in terms of our national defense. China is believed to spend about $175 billion a year, about one-fourth of our total defense spending.

Here is Russia spending about 10 percent of our defense spending, and we are concerned about the threat they pose to the United States and our allies. Here is China spending one-fourth of what we do, and we worry about their expanded roles in places like the Pacific.

What is baffling about that comparison is that we spend so much more than our major adversaries in the world. Yet many experts testify over and over before congressional committees that we are falling behind in the development of key technologies--technologies like satellites, artificial intelligence, hypersonic missiles, and quantum computing.

It doesn't stand to reason that the United States of America, with all of its strength and all of its innovation and all of its ingenuity, is being challenged in the world by countries that are spending a fraction of what we spend.

The conclusion is obvious. Our large increase of military spending calls for more accountability on how these funds are being spent. I voted for Secretary Mattis. I respect him very much, not only for his service to our country as a General in the U.S. Marine Corps but also as our Secretary of Defense. Thank goodness he is on the job. I have a lot of faith in him, and I believe he has a steady hand in an administration where there aren't too many steady hands.

In March, Secretary Mattis sent a memo to every member of the Department of Defense, and here was the title: ``Be Peerless Stewards of the Taxpayers' Dollars.'' I have had the opportunity on two or three occasions to have direct conversations with Secretary Mattis about my concern that we are dramatically increasing American spending over our adversaries and still we believe they have a competitive edge or a near-competitive edge in many critical areas. Secretary Mattis correctly assessed in this report that the Pentagon needs a culture of performance and accountability in order to increase the trust and confidence that not only Congress but especially the American taxpayer places in his team.

We also have a procurement system--a purchasing system--that sadly encourages poor behavior and poor results. I asked Dr. Michael Griffin, the top research and development official in the Department of Defense: Why do we spend so much more in the United States and continue to fall behind?

He said that many members of the Department of Defense are afraid to be the last to say yes to a program that may not succeed. Too many decisions are pushed up the bureaucratic ladder to higher levels, which strangles these programs in redtape and delays them even more. If something goes wrong, failures are the subject of heated congressional hearings. We have seen that over and over--from $20,000 toilet seats and similar scandals in the past.

I agree with Dr. Griffin's findings. The Department of Defense needs to do so much more to change the culture of accountability at that agency. We need to establish a new spirit of transparency. Right now, every weapon system--every single one of them--is sold to Congress with a rosy scenario: technological breakthroughs at a modest cost. There is no difference between the sales pitch on a program that is easy to develop and one that is a giant risk.

The Department of Defense needs to be more upfront and more candid with what can go wrong and what will happen if something does go wrong. Very often, the contentious hearings that Dr. Griffin spoke about are not the result of a failed test but a broken promise.

While the Pentagon has much work ahead of it to improve its accountability, the world does stand still. The Defense appropriations bill before the Senate makes major investments and innovation, and these are critical to our servicemembers, their families, and to the defense of our Nation. In this bill there is $95.1 billion in research and development spending. Remember, the total budget is almost $700 billion, and $95.1 billion goes for R&D. This is the highest level of R&D funding in programs in the history of the Department of Defense, even when adjusted for inflation, and I support it.

The increases provided by the committee will include major investments in areas that are challenging and promising at the same time: artificial intelligence, satellite technologies, and basic research. In addition, the bill provides $1.8 billion, just a small proportion of the total budget, and that money goes to medical research. That is a 5-percent increase over last year's spending. This DOD research is just a fraction of what is invested at the National Institutes of Health, which I will address in a moment, that resulted in breakthroughs ranging from breast cancer treatments to battlefield medical care.

Our soldiers, sailors, marines, members of the Coast Guard, and airmen are surviving in battle because of this research at the Department of Defense. It is money well spent.

With all of the valuable investments that are included in this bill, I want to especially thank Chairman Richard Shelby, of Alabama, for all of his work on this bill. It has been a real joy to work with him. We have disagreed on a few things--don't get me wrong--and I am sure we will continue to do so, but we have known one another for many years. We respect one another, and we are determined that this critical bill is going to be part of the success report that comes out of the Senate as we break for the Labor Day recess.

Chairman Shelby has been receptive to many suggestions and comments, and I have tried to do the same when he has made some ideas a part of his proposal in this bill. I want to commend him for all of his work to get the appropriations process on track, not just on this bill but on the others as well. We stand a real chance in the Senate of sending most appropriations bills to the President before the end of the fiscal year the last day of September--a feat that has not been accomplished for the defense budget in 10 years.

To Chairman Shelby's great credit, he understands that moving this Defense appropriations bill along also means moving other appropriations bills with it. While there may be tough votes coming up, we have come a long way to reestablish regular order in the last few months, and I am happy to be a part of this bipartisan solution. I hope the House will come back soon and join us in this effort. We would love to see them again.

Now, let me say a word about the other appropriations bill that is part of our package on the floor. This bill, the Labor-HHS-Education bill, includes funding for the National Institutes of Health. For the past 6 years, I have made this the focal point of my work here in the Senate. I don't take particular credit for the results, but I have done my darndest to encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to make this a priority, and I am happy to report they have.

For the fourth year in a row, Congress is on track to provide the National Institutes of Health with funding increases of at least 5 percent in real growth--a $2 billion increase in this bill. In the fiscal year 2019 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill before the Senate, we will help to ensure that our Nation's best and brightest medical researchers have the funding they need to conduct research on the diseases and conditions that impact every single American.

NIH researchers are currently trying to develop cures for cancer, to figure out developments to delay or prevent the threat of Alzheimer's, and to help better those living with heart disease or diabetes.

Between 2010 and 2016, the Food and Drug Administration approved 210 new drugs in that 6-year period of time for treatments in the United States. Every single one of these new drugs was developed with funding by the National Institutes of Health.

I hope, as we move forward to conference with the House on this bill, that we can include at least a 5-percent funding increase for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as other agencies that allow America to literally lead the world in medical innovation.

This bill provides $3.7 billion for the prevention and treatment of the scourge of opioid addiction. It will help our Federal agencies to respond better to this ongoing public health challenge. It includes provisions I requested to help the CDC address the toll of violence in the city of Chicago and assist with the Legionnaires' disease outbreak in Quincy, IL. It rejects President Trump's efforts to slash the Federal-Work Study Program and includes an increase in the maximum Pell grant of $100. It includes $5 million for the Open Textbooks Pilot Program, helping college students across America with the exploding cost of higher education.

It is a good bill, and I want to commend Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the Democrat, and Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, the Republican, for crafting the bipartisan fiscal year 2019 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill. I do think we should be addressing the skyrocketing drug costs that every single American is well aware of. It is something we all talk about, but the underlying bill doesn't address it. I filed a bipartisan amendment with my friend and colleague from Iowa, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, to improve price transparency and direct-to-consumer drug advertising.

If I ask you whether you have seen any ads for drugs on television and you answer no, then, I know automatically that you don't own a television because the average American sees a drug advertisement about nine times a day.

Why do the drug companies spend so much money advertising on television in the United States? Doesn't every other country do the same? No. It turns out that the United States and New Zealand are the only two countries that allow pharma, drug companies, to advertise their products on television directly to consumers.

Why would pharma spend $6 billion a year on advertising so many different ways for Americans to buy these drugs? Because it is profitable. Americans, finally, after the fifth, sixth, seventh, or eighth time they have seen it can not only pronounce but even spell Xarelto. When they go to the doctor's office, they say: Doctor, maybe I need a little different blood thinner; maybe I need Xarelto.

Xarelto turns out to be the brand name of a very expensive prescription drug.

What about the drug Humira? How many ads have you seen for the drug Humira? You can't escape them. It is the most advertised treatment on television. Humira was designed to deal with rheumatoid arthritis, a very serious illness that many Americans face. Then, they found out that Humira might have some value when it comes to something called psoriasis. What is psoriasis? It is the red patch on my elbow.

They said: You know, you ought to consider Humira to deal with psoriasis.

Here is a Humira ad. Here is the one thing they don't disclose about Humira on the ad. It costs $5,500 a month. I would like to have perfect skin on my elbow--but at a cost of $5,500 per month? Would you think twice about asking for this drug from your doctor if you knew that it was going to cost this much? Of course you would.

Senator Grassley and I have a simple amendment. The drug companies that want to advertise on television ought to advertise the price of their product or treatment as well. Pharma hates this idea like the devil hates holy water. The notion of actually disclosing what these drugs cost would not only give you a jolt--as you hear $5,500 a month for Humira--but it would also dramatize the increases in drug costs that we see happening all of the time.

Don't you think the American people deserve this information?

Guess what. Look at the passenger side behind the driver's seat in your car. Look at the window. There is a little disclosure about exactly what you should have to pay for that car. But when it comes to paying for prescription drugs, pharma doesn't want to tell you. They want you to finally face it at the cash register.

I think Americans have a right to know earlier and more about the cost of these prescription drugs. Seventy-six percent of the American people, incidentally, agree with that position.

This amendment is bipartisan and is supported, incidentally, by 76 percent of Americans, the American Association of Retired Persons, the American Medical Association, and--hold on to your hat--President Donald Trump supports this provision as well.

We have an amendment that is bipartisan and is supported by the administration, which should be included in this bill, which will move us toward price disclosure. I think it is overdue.

We also need to increase the funding for the Centers for Disease Control's work on congenital heart disease, the most common and deadliest category of birth defects.

I will be filing an amendment to increase the funding for this program from $4 million to $7 million--a modest amount in a bill of billions of dollars but one that would help 2.4 million Americans living with congenital heart disease. Student Loan Debt

Madam President, I also plan to file 2 amendments to help some of the 44 million Americans who are struggling with student loan debt by bringing sanity to the way student loans are treated in bankruptcy.

Unlike most types of debt, student loans are extremely difficult-- almost impossible--to discharge in bankruptcy. Why? There are two reasons. A debtor has to meet a high bar of showing ``undue hardship'' in order to get student loans discharged, and the Department of Education pays private contracting firms to fight the students tooth and nail in court if they try to seek a discharge of their student debt because of undue hardship.

My amendments would bar the use of Federal funds to pay these contractors who contest undue hardship claims in bankruptcy court when the claims are brought by certain student debtors.

Listen to the categories of people we have included in this amendment, people I think would be deserving of discharge of their student debts in bankruptcy court: No. 1, veterans who have been deemed unemployable because of a service-connected disability; No. 2, family caregivers of veterans or of the elderly or disabled family members; No. 3, people receiving Social Security disability whose only income is Social Security payments; and No. 4, borrowers who have finished school but have spent at least 5 years at a low income of less than $24,000 a year.

Those are four of the categories of people we think deserve a break when it comes to student loan debt. I hope my colleagues will join me in helping disabled veterans and their caregivers and the others included in this amendment.

A second amendment would focus exclusively on disabled veterans and family caregivers.

Finally, I will file two amendments to protect students from our Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. Secretary DeVos is planning to repeal or rewrite Obama-era borrower defense and gainful employment rules that help students and taxpayers avoid being cheated by for- profit colleges and universities.

Do you want to know the story on for-profit colleges and universities? You need to know only two numbers: only 9 percent of all post-secondary students attend for-profit schools--University of Phoenix, DeVry, and similar schools; 9 percent of students go to that type of school, yet 33 percent of all student loan defaults are from students who attend these for-profit schools. Why--9 percent of the students, 33 percent of the student loan defaults? There are two reasons. No. 1 is they charge too darn much. They are dramatically more expensive than other alternative education at the higher education level. Secondly, their diplomas aren't worth the paper they are written on. These students learn after they graduate that they can't get a job to pay back their student loans.

So I think in this situation Secretary DeVos is doing exactly the wrong thing. She is not holding these schools accountable. She is making it tougher for the students who are lured into their traps to get relief. I am pleased that many of my colleagues have joined in this effort. The Secretary of Education should not roll back important protections for students and taxpayers, and the Secretary should not eliminate Federal student debt relief for borrowers defrauded by predatory for-profit schools like Corinthian and ITT Tech. It is my hope that these amendments will be included in the final bill.

Madam President, once again, the Senate is considering bipartisan appropriations bills. These bills may not include everything I want or everything other Members want. They are good compromises, which I plan to support.

Recognition of the Minority Leader

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