William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021

Floor Speech

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Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, my amendment would repeal the law that requires the military to provide an unfunded priorities list to Congress along with their budget request each year.

This year, the Pentagon requested a whopping $740 billion from Congress, even more than last year, while other agencies like the State Department, the EPA, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development were cut by over 15 percent.

The defense budget eats up over half of our Nation's annual discretionary budget, and yet this year Pentagon officials gave Members of Congress a wish list of $18 billion in unfunded priorities on top of its request for $740 billion in spending.

Why? Because in 2016, Congress actually passed a law requiring the military services and combatant commands to provide annual wish lists of weapons systems that the Pentagon couldn't fit into its already massive budget.

No other Federal agency is required by law to provide such wish lists, and with good reason. The practice is irresponsible, and it undermines the very goals of budgeting.

So why does it exist? Because it gives special interests and the defense contractor industry an opportunity to argue for Congress to fund additional, extremely expensive weapons systems not important enough to make it into the Pentagon's budget.

Now, this is a bipartisan concern. You might hear that this is something that just Democrats want. No. Lawmakers have long questioned the utility of unfunded priority lists. The late Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in 2015: ``Actually, I am not really big on unfunded priority lists. I think they're sort of a backdoor way of getting things done.''

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates took a step further to ban the practice of submitting these lists to Congress during his tenure.

Senator McCain and Secretary Gates were exactly right. We need to see spending discipline and better efficiency within the Pentagon.

The Department of Defense has now failed two consecutive audits in 2 years. The Pentagon lost track of $800 million in construction projects and $2.1 billion in spare parts for the F-35 program. And it even buried an internal study revealing $125 billion in bureaucratic waste amid fears that the findings might lead Congress to reconsider the massive sum of taxpayer money that goes to the Pentagon each year.

If a private corporation lost track of hundreds of millions of dollars and shielded evidence that it could save billions in wasteful spending, its shareholders would find that completely unacceptable, but the Defense Department has not undertaken the kind of real reform that it needs. In fact, the senior officer the Pentagon appointed just 3 years ago to reform the Department is now poised to be eliminated because she identified too much waste that could be saved.

Now, the other side might claim that these wish lists are necessary for our national security. To that I say, if they are necessary, put them in the budget. Put them in the budget. The Pentagon submitted a budget for $740 billion. If these programs are so necessary, put them in the budget. No budget on top of budgets.

Additionally, this amendment doesn't preclude our military services and combatant commands from sending over wish lists or testifying to Congress, but what it does do is end a terrible budgeting practice that lines the pockets of a bunch of defense contractor lobbyists at the expense of working people. That is unsustainable, and we must rein that in.
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Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have left?

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Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to say that we are getting the priorities from the Pentagon. That is called the budget. That is what they are supposed to do. They are supposed to put together their priorities and send it to us. So, we are looking at exactly what the Pentagon wants.

We are responding to that by, in this case, putting $740 billion into a defense budget. Now, you are going to tell me you need a budget on top of the budget. That is bad budgeting, by every stretch of the imagination.

Mr. Speaker, I don't care which President asked for it, it is bad. That is why this has always been a bipartisan amendment or a bipartisan idea to get rid of this Unfunded Priorities List. It does not do the job; it bloats the military budget; and it is unnecessary and inefficient and bad spending.

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Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I stand in strong support of this amendment by my fantastic co-chair, Mr. Pocan, and Ms. Lee.

This is critical for us to just do this small step of cutting 10 percent of our Pentagon budget.

Enough is enough. This year's defense budget is 90 times bigger than the budget for the Centers for Disease Control. Yet, we are nearing 4 million COVID cases and over 141,000 deaths, and this President wants to add money for defense spending while cutting money for testing. That is just wrong.

It is a small amount, but it is a start. That $74 billion could mean childcare for every family. It could mean housing vouchers for every eligible family. It could mean a $23,000 raise for every public-school teacher.

So many things that we could do with this money--what we cannot do is give it away to corrupt defense contractors.

Pass this amendment. Reset our priorities. It is time.

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