Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2024
Floor Speech
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Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I rise today to offer my amendment that utilizes the Holman rule to reduce the salary of Shawn Skelly, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness. That salary shall be reduced to $1.
As the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Mr. Skelly is the principal adviser to the Secretary of Defense and the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness on all matters related to the readiness of our Armed Forces.
In that capacity, he is supposed to develop policies and plans, provide advice, and make recommendations for total force readiness programs, reporting, and assessments of readiness to execute the national defense strategy.
Like many of Biden's bureaucrats, Mr. Skelly is failing at his job and the basic responsibilities. On his watch, the Army missed their recruiting goal by 15,000 soldiers last year, and all other branches were forced to dig deep into their pools of delayed entry applicants to meet their recruitment goals.
On top of that, the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard are all expected to fall short of their recruitment goals this year.
Mr. Skelly has also been with the Biden administration since the beginning and was appointed to the transition team--some irony there-- in November of 2020.
As the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness, Mr. Skelly played an instrumental role in the disastrous and shameful withdrawal from Afghanistan that killed 13 of America's finest, 13 American heroes in that embarrassing surrender to the Taliban.
As DOD's highest ranking trans official, this delusional man, thinking he is a woman, embodies and espouses the wokeism that is causing significant harm to our military readiness and troop morale.
The military shouldn't be focused on this woke agenda and combating climate change. With Mr. Skelly at the helm of readiness, these misguided policy pursuits will continue to be at the forefront of DOD's priorities.
I urge my colleagues to support my amendment to restore the focus of our Department of Defense to defend our Nation. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I guess delusion runs deep in the Democratic Party. I would go on the record to say that science is a friend in this case and, sure, if you want to call Mr. Skelly a ``her,'' his chromosomes are still X-Y, and we trust the science over here rather than delusion and playing dress-up and imaginary games with our military readiness.
Our military needs to be lethal and able to defend our national security, not pander to the woke extremist left and make up fairy tales.
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Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I just want the Record to reflect that there is nothing hateful about truth. Again, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment to restore the focus of our Department of Defense to defend our Nation. I look forward to this Holman rule being utilized to reduce the salary of Secretary Shawn Skelly, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness, to $1.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I rise in favor of my amendment, which will reduce the salary of Norvel Dillard, director of Diversity and Inclusion Management at the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion of the Department of Defense, to $1.
Norvel ``Rock'' Dillard is a part of Joe Biden and Lloyd Austin's attempt to woken and weaken our military. He works in an office that should not exist doing a job that also should not exist.
Our military is not a social experiment, and we definitely should not be treating it like one or spending taxpayer dollars to do so.
Woke ideology undermines military readiness. It undermines cohesiveness by emphasizing differences based on race, ethnicity, and sex.
It undermines leadership authority by introducing questions about whether promotion is based on merit or quota requirements. It leads to military personnel serving in specialty areas for which they are not qualified or ready. It takes time and resources away from training activities and weapons development to contribute to readiness.
Unelected bureaucrats at the DOD need to be held responsible for their failed leadership, which has distracted from DOD's mission and jeopardized the United States military's ability to defend our country.
From the botched Afghanistan withdrawal that left 13 American soldiers dead to the implementation of a woke agenda that has weakened our military and caused recruitment to suffer, bureaucrats like Norvel Dillard have continued to put a leftist agenda ahead of our national security.
The Federal Government's obsession with diversity, equity, and inclusion needs to come to an end, especially at DOD, where our brave servicemembers volunteer to put themselves in harm's way to fight for freedom. They don't care about the skin color of their brothers and sisters in uniform. They care about completing the mission and going home to their families. Our Defense Department should have the same mindset.
Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment to restore the focus of our Department of Defense to defend our Nation.
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Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle agree that there is a recruitment crisis. Why is that? I think it is because our brave men and women who put their lives on the line to serve our Nation dutifully, with honor, don't see a true Commander in Chief in office. They don't see true leadership that they can be proud to serve alongside, to serve under.
I don't believe that our brave men and women see that they will be taken care of when they put their lives in harm's way to defend our Nation, to defend our allies throughout the world.
Let me ask my colleagues a broad question: This Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, did that save our 13 servicemembers in Afghanistan, or did it distract from the actual mission?
I heard from my colleagues, Mr. Chair, on the other side of the aisle that this was a way to ridicule and disrespect. I think it is ridiculing to promote someone who does not have the qualifications needed for a position just because of how they identify, their race.
This is what is ridiculing. This is what is disrespectful.
This woke agenda, this DEI, this movement that the left has created, I see it as a way to erase women. I heard my colleague on the other side of the aisle talk about, in the 1970s, there was a recruitment effort to bring more women to our military, and if that were the case today, if that were the mission today, to offer a more diverse military and recruit more women, well, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would simply put men in a dress and put them in heels. Heck, I got some red lipstick you could borrow.
That is not the answer. The answer is readiness. The answer is that we are all equal under the law, and you do not promote someone simply because of these qualifications.
Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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