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Floor Speech

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Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the importance of the Senate providing the resources needed by our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines.

We are seeing increasing threats to the homeland from around the world. We need look no further than the recent elimination of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi by U.S. Special Operations forces to show us that there are evil people out there who continue to devote their lives to killing American citizens and glorifying the fall of our Nation. The rise of ISIS proved that radical terrorist ideologies remain dangerous. Despite the elimination of its leader, groups like ISIS will continue to remain a serious challenge across the globe.

We have also seen the emergence of a great power competition with China and Russia. They are investing massive amounts of resources to erode the international order that the United States and our allies have worked so hard to create and protect. Leaders of these nations don't want societies based on liberty and free enterprise; instead, they are focused on promoting the iron precepts of authoritarianism and autocracy. Without American engagement and a strong investment in the Nation's military, our children could live in a world transformed by these malign forces. We cannot allow that to happen.

Clearly, the threats we face abroad are increasing. On that fact, we have bipartisan support. These past few weeks, many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have spoken about the situation in Syria and the danger that an expansionist Russia poses to nations like Ukraine. We agree about the need for the United States to address these challenges, but I am not convinced that my Democratic colleagues are truly serious about sustaining American leadership and retaining our position in the world. If they are, it is time to show it by advancing the defense funding legislation.

Funding the military in a timely, predictable fashion is one of the most important things we can do in Congress. A failure to do so awards China and Russia with an advantage at a time when we can least afford it. We need to work together to pass our Defense appropriations bill for the coming fiscal year and to focus on implementing the National Defense Strategy to effectively confront these threats.

It is also worth highlighting how many provisions contained in this bill are absolutely critical to our military. This legislation provides significant investments in both basic research and future technologies to allow for continued innovation within DOD. It includes areas pivotal to implementing the goals of the NDS, including hypersonics, 5G, artificial intelligence, missile defense, and cyber security.

Importantly, it provides robust funding for all three legs of the triad and appropriates funding to enable the modernization of our Nation's nuclear deterrent. There is no question that this is a top priority of mine as chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

In addition, we cannot forget that the Department of Defense still has not recovered from the impacts of several natural disasters that affected multiple installations across the country. This includes Offutt Air Force Base and Camp Ashland in my own State of Nebraska, as well as several others. Without the relief funding in the Defense appropriations bill, these bases and their tenant units will not be able to fully recover from these disasters. That poses a major threat not just to the bases themselves but to all of the missions we rely upon them to support. For that reason, it is critical that we move forward with the defense funding process to allow full recovery to take place at these bases.

All of us here also recognize that our military is about more than hardware; it is our men and women in uniform and their families who make our Armed Forces strong. That is why it is so essential that we provide the pay and benefits that are critical for our servicemembers and their families. The Defense appropriations bill delivers a military pay increase of 3.1 percent. That is the largest in a decade.

If we are truly serious about supporting our warfighters, if we mean what we say when we talk about supporting the troops, then step up. We must move forward with the Defense appropriations bill. Now is the not the time to put political grandstanding ahead of serious legislating.

I hope we can look back at the Senate's bipartisan tradition of uniting behind the common defense as inspiration. Let's take up and pass the Defense appropriations bill. In doing so, we honor our commitment to America's warfighters.

We have seen over the past week how the bravery and commitment of our servicemembers can deliver the world's most-wanted terrorist to justice. We must honor their service and the service of all our men and women in uniform by moving this process forward.

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