Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment. I think it is a very good amendment offered by the gentleman from Georgia.

And while I certainly concur with the words of the distinguished ranking member of the committee and the earlier words of the chairman for how important NATO is, the fact of the matter is that, as Defense Secretary Gates told us a couple of weeks ago, the European members of NATO are not pulling their weight. They're not spending the kind of money that we are spending. They're not spending the kind of money that Israel is spending on their own defense. They're not putting in very much effort at all. We're carrying the burden.

And the fact of the matter is, as we're seeing in Libya where they're running out of ammunition after a couple weeks' fighting with a nothing power, NATO, or at least the European allies, simply aren't spending money. They're relying on us to do it. They ought to get used to spending a little of their own money on this.

The fact of the matter is that Israel is spending 7 1/2 percent of its GDP on the military. She has to because she is the object of the Iranians and others who want to destroy her. And we are getting our money's worth because Israel's technical expertise in antimissile defenses in the Iron Dome, which we are helping with, is feeding back to us.

So switching these funds from NATO to Israel will benefit the United States in terms of antimissile technology; will benefit Israel, which is putting in 7 1/2 percent of GDP; and may give a little more weight to Secretary Gates' words when he says to the European members of NATO that if they want to pull their weight, they ought to start pulling their weight and spending a little more money instead of--I think they're spending under 2 percent of GDP for defense now. And if they want to be allies of the United States, which we need them to be and which they should be, it can't be a one-way alliance.

This amendment will help Israel, will help us, will help the cause of opposing terrorism generally, and send a little message to the European allies: Maybe you ought to start thinking, if you're going to pull your weight in NATO, pull your weight in NATO.

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Mr. NADLER. Reclaiming my time, to sum up, this helps the Israelis; it helps the United States; it helps the general security; and it sends the message to the European allies they should start looking into maybe putting some real effort into NATO, which they haven't been doing in recent years, as our Secretary of Defense Gates said recently.

Let's support Secretary of the Department of Defense Gates and let's get them to start making a little effort and send them a little message here.

So I support the gentleman's amendment.

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Chair, I am sort of surprised by this amendment. It seems to me that if we want to have control over the contracts in the procurement process, if we want Congress to be able to know what is going on, if we want to be able to save money, which is what we keep talking about, you want the process that we have here.

Perhaps you want an improved process, but you want an inventory. I mean, certainly no one will deny that some, perhaps many, of the private contracts that the Pentagon lets have been wasteful. Many have not been, but certainly an inventory so that Congress can keep a closer eye on it is calculated to reduce the waste, to reduce the wasteful expenditures, to enable us to have better oversight.

So why you would want to change that? And I am given to understand that this provision originated with the Republican Congresses during the Bush administration, and, frankly, it was a good innovation. Congress ought to be able to watch more closely what any government agency that is spending the kind of money the Pentagon is spending, hundreds of billions of dollars, much of it to private contractors--we ought to be able to watch what they're doing, watch what they're doing more closely, keep an eye on it, and be able to rein it in and say, hey, wait a minute, that contract is being well administered but that one isn't; that contract we have a lot of questions about. So why would we want to eliminate that provision that has worked well?

Now, granted, it hasn't worked as well as we have wanted. Granted, we ought to improve it. Perhaps some of you can come up with an amendment with some language that would improve it.

But to get rid of it, to say we don't need that oversight, we don't need that inventory of contracts, let the Pentagon do that in the dark of night, let the Pentagon have their contracts, let their contracts and no one look at it? It seems to me rather unfrugal, rather wasteful, and not calculated to save the taxpayers money. Why would we want to do that? I don't know; so I have to oppose this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. NADLER. I will be brief.

First of all, I'm told that the amount in the bill here, $200 million, is essentially the amount that is being spent now; so this is not really a reduction.

Secondly, I just want to add one thing to what the gentlelady from Minnesota said. Over the break we just had, I went to a food pantry operated by a church on Coney Island. There was a line out the door of about 70 or 80 people. They were giving food packets 3 days out of every month; 3 days out of every month, and trying to figure out how to scrounge enough money to give food packets 4 days out of every month. And, of course, we are cutting the budget for Women, Infants and Children. We are cutting the budget for food aid. We are cutting the budget for food stamps. We can maintain the military bands and not expand them. We have to keep this in perspective.

Yes, I love John Philip Sousa. I love military bands. I love marching bands. But people have to eat. And we are being savaged in the budget that we are passing and in the negotiations on the debt ceiling. We are being savaged on things for people to eat.

This seems the least we can do.

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Mr. NADLER. Reclaiming my time, the limitation in the bill will simply make sure that it doesn't expand. The fact is that with all of the negotiations going on and the debt ceiling and everything else, there is going to be pressure to cut everything. This amendment simply says we can expand here even though we are cutting far more important things. I think the language in the bill is sufficient. The committee did a wise job. I urge opposition to the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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