Adam Smith

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, first, let me say I agree with Mr. Nolan on a couple of key points. Number one, I think the overseas contingency fund has come to be relied on too much. Yes, it was created before the Budget Control Act, but these wars have been going on long enough now that we ought to be able to incorporate it into the funds. So I agree with him on that. But completely zeroing out the overseas contingency fund, I think, is irresponsible, because while I agree in some cases the terrorism threat may be overblown, it is, nonetheless, real. Yemen is always the best example. We went into Afghanistan after 9/ 11. We dealt with that. We thought we had al-Qaida contained. And then we had the underwear bomber in Detroit and the package bombs that both almost came into the U.S. and attacked us, and they came out of Yemen. So we had to respond to that. We had to respond in our own self- defense. And that is part of what the overseas contingency fund funds. So, if we wanted to reduce it, if we wanted to get more transparency, I am all for that. But to simply zero it out would basically be to say that we have all these wars and we really have none of them. I am somewhere in between on that. So I can't support zeroing out the overseas contingency fund, although I do agree with some of the statements that the sponsor of the amendment made. Mr. Chairman, because it zeros it out completely, I have to oppose the amendment.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time is left on each side.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I don't have any further speakers at this time. If the gentleman from Texas is prepared to close, then I am prepared to close as well. I yield myself the balance of the time. Again, I just want to emphasize the most important aspect of this bill is the bipartisan effort that we have done working together. There are literally thousands of provisions in this bill. All of them are important in their own way to helping make sure that we set the right policy and make sure that the Department of Defense can be as strong as is humanly possible. One thing I didn't say in the opening remarks, that I do want to point out, I particularly want to thank Chairman Thornberry on his leadership on acquisition reform and reform in general--the idea of how can we make sure that every dollar we spend at the Pentagon is spent as wisely as possible. As we know that has not always been the case. I think we made a number of reforms, more in the previous two years' bill than in this one, but this one continues on that. I think it put us on a path to having a more efficient and effective use use of dollars on the Pentagon side. We all look forward to that day, which is supposed to happen I believe this year, when we actually get the full audit from the Pentagon on where they spend their money. In these times of scarce resources, it is incredibly important we get the most out of what we spend. And the last little piece on that point, I do worry about the future from a fiscal standpoint. We are right now spending roughly 20 percent more money than we take in every year, and that is projected to go up. The debt to GDP ratio is over 100 percent and, again, is projected to only go up. We have got the deal for FY18 and FY19 which gives some degree of predictability for our military--and that is good--because the last, gosh, 8 years now, we have gone from CR to CR, couple of government shutdowns, a number of threatened government shutdowns, and a large amount of unpredictability which is a problem for the entire discretionary budget--not just for the Department of Defense but every other Department that is dependent upon the discretionary budget has lived with uncertainty. That makes our government less efficient and less effective. We need to lock in more predictability. Now, traditionally at this point, this is when everyone says that the Budget Control Act and the budget caps have got to go, and I agree with that. The problem is you can get rid of the budget caps and you can get rid of the Budget Control Act--and we certainly should. That was passed back in 2011. It wasn't even passed for a good reason back then. But even if you get rid of those caps, it doesn't make money magically appear. We still have the debt and the deficit that we are facing. We still have the crushing needs that we have, not just in the Department of Defense, but in infrastructure and research and education and a whole bunch of critical areas to the health and wellbeing of our country. Someone thought I was joking when someone talked about his ``fiscal hawk credentials.'' I am wondering if anyone has fiscal hawk credentials at this point when you look at the debt and deficit. We have got to get that in order. Now I don't think we are going to balance the budget tomorrow. I don't think we should. I think the impact on the economy will be devastating, but we have got to get on a glide path to a more fiscally sustainable situation or we are headed for trouble. I simply don't believe that you can spend 20 percent more money than you take in forever and not have it be a problem. And everything you want to know about how big a problem this is is contained in three votes that we took over a couple month period. There are many, many Members of Congress who voted for the tax cut, which estimates say it is going to reduce our revenue by $2 trillion; for the spending agreement, which increased our spending by $500 billion; and then, a week later, they voted for a balanced budget amendment. To say that that is a math problem is the understatement of the year. It doesn't add up. We all say we want to balance the budget. We don't want to raise taxes. We don't want to cut spending. That doesn't work and a lot of different aspects of our government pay a price for that. But the Department of Defense is one of the biggest. As the largest portion of the discretionary budget, they pay the highest price when we don't get ourselves on a fiscally responsible path, and national security is at least one of, if not the most important function that our government needs to provide. So I think FY18 and FY19, those are good deals. The building code for the future, we have got to get on a fiscally responsible path. But, again, within this bill--and you have heard a lot of it from our Members--there are a lot of good policies that I think are going to make a very positive difference in terms of making our Department of Defense work better and, most importantly, providing for the men and women who serve our country and their families. I thank the chairman. I thank the staff. I think, once again, we have done outstanding work. I hope that we can get through the amendment process, get this bill passed, and then go chat with the Senate about getting the bill finished. They are marking their bill up in committee this week, so I think we are on a good path to do that as well. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I support the gentleman's amendment. I just want to comment on a couple of aspects of it. I think it is incredibly important that we get more small businesses involved. Sometimes the best technology, the best ideas, that is where they start, and working with the Pentagon bureaucracy can be overwhelming. A large company like Lockheed Martin or Boeing doesn't have a problem, but maybe the best ideas come from some small garage startup. I think making affirmative efforts to make sure we reach out and get those companies involved is something that is very important and something we need to continue to do. Yes, we need to track the success of it. Given the record of some of the programs of record, I personally would hesitate to judge them based on whether or not they made it into a program of record. I know we have done some reforms where it has worked where they don't have to get into a program of record. The Pentagon doesn't have to go through all of the processes that are involved with that. They just are able to say: I like that. We are going to buy it. In fact, that is one of the reforms that the chairman has been a leader on doing is freeing up more opportunity, particularly when you are talking about technology, to simply buy the best product instead of having to do an RFP and a down select and going through a lengthy process. So I agree with the chairman on that. As we are judging whether or not these small businesses are truly contributing to our national security, I would hope we would keep two things in mind. One is having a program of record may not necessarily be a measure of whether or not they are doing that; and two, not all ideas work out, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't keep pursuing them. It is the Silicon Valley mantra that it is okay to fail. You learn something from that. You build a better technology. And with the rapid pace of technology, that is part of what we need to do as well. I think these programs are critically important. The gentleman's amendment will help with that. I support the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes. Mr. Chairman, first of all, I want to start off by agreeing with the chairman on the importance both of the bill, but also on the incredible work that we do in a bipartisan manner. I think the chairman has set the right tone for the committee. His leadership makes all the difference in the world in terms of making sure that we all understand that we are working together to produce a product that is enormously important to the national security of this country. Not that we don't have our disagreements--we have many--but we do so in a respectful way, always with the goal of what is the best policy for our national defense. The chairman's leadership has set the tone for that in a way that is helpful to all of us. All 62 members of the committee also contribute, and, of course, the staff. The staff has to look through all the amendments, all the issues, and make sure that we are aware of them, and they do a fabulous job. This is the one bill that we pass every year, and the work that our staff does is always outstanding and always puts us Members in a position to do the best we can on the bill. So I appreciate the staff, I appreciate the bipartisan spirit in the committee, and I look forward to having a 58th successful year in producing a National Defense Authorization Act because, first and foremost, it is incredibly important that we set national security policy for this country. As the chairman mentioned, we face an incredibly complex set of threat environments. We need policy to figure out what the best approach to that is. Most importantly, right now, after nearly 17 years of war, we have really worked the men and women who serve us in the armed services very, very hard, and there is a very real readiness problem within our military, as we have underfunded that to fund the short-term needs as presented by the conflicts that we have gotten into. I think the most important thing about this bill is it really begins to pay that back. It begins to bring back up the readiness levels so that the men and women who serve us are prepared for the fights that we ask them to do. That, to me, is the most important point. We can have a very robust debate about how large the military budget should be, about what responsibilities we should take on, but wherever we come out on that debate, when we decide this is what we expect the military to do, it is incredibly important that we provide the funds and training to make sure that they can do it. Now, again, we can argue that they should do less, but in my mind, it is completely unacceptable to say: Well, we have got so many priorities, We don't know how to do it. We are going to ask you to do all these things and then not have the men and women to get the training that they need to be ready for that fight. I believe this bill starts moving us in the right direction. It also honors the agreement that we made just a few short months ago for both FY '18 and, now, FY '19 in terms of what the defense and nondefense numbers should be in the appropriations process. So I appreciate that. There are several things; and as the chairman mentioned, in a bill of this size, of this magnitude, $717 billion, it would be a miracle if there were any one person who agreed with absolutely everything in the bill. I am sure there is not. But the one thing that I would point out that is most troubling to me is the endorsement of the nuclear posture review that was just put forward by the administration. I am very concerned, number one, that we are spending too much money on our nuclear weapons arsenal going forward and what impact will that have on those other needs that I mentioned just a minute ago. What impact will that have on readiness? What impact will it have on our ability to have the forces forward deployed enough to deter Russia, to deter North Korea, to deal with China's rise in Asia? So I think we are overemphasizing nuclear weapons, number one, in terms of the amount of money that we are spending on them. But equally as troubling, this bill authorizes low-yield nuclear weapons for the first time in a very long time. It even authorizes a low-yield nuclear weapon for our submarines. I believe that that puts us down a dangerous course. We need to do more to make sure that we are deterring any possibility of nuclear war. There is a huge risk as Russia rises back up, with what North Korea is doing, now that we are not in the nuclear agreement with Iran, what they might be doing, that we avoid miscalculation and stumble into a nuclear war. Thinking that there is such a thing as a tactical nuclear weapon, a weapon small enough that it doesn't really rise to the level of the other nuclear weapons, I think, is a mistake. And, yes, I know Russia is building them. So the question is: How do we deter Russia? Well, I think we deter Russia in a very straightforward way. We have over 4,000 nuclear warheads. We have more than enough nuclear firepower to present a credible deterrent to what they are doing. We don't have to say: Well, if you use a small nuclear weapon, we won't want to use a bigger one in response. We want to say that our deterrence is: If you cross the red line of all red lines and use a nuclear weapon, we will respond overwhelmingly. We want to make sure it never happens. So I think building low-yield tactical nuclear weapons is a mistake. I also think it is incredibly important that we increase the dialogue between our country and Russia and China and North Korea, nuclear armed powers, to make sure that there is not a miscalculation and we don't stumble into a nuclear war. Overall, I think this is a good product. I look forward to the amendment debate and look forward to supporting the bill. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Guam (Ms. Bordallo), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Readiness.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Tsongas), our ranking member on the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Brown), a member of the Armed Services Committee and a veteran of our military. I appreciate his service on the committee.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi), a member of the committee.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Connecticut.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Ruiz).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I urge adoption of the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, we have no speakers. I urge adoption, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I, too, have no requests for time, urge adoption of the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. Today, Israel is home to over 8 million people--all with unique histories that stretch from around the world. The nation has become fertile ground for business, innovation, and entrepreneurship, with companies leading the way in cutting edge technologies. Israel has also worked to strengthen their global outreach and assistance through the work of organizations such as MASHAV--sharing expert insight and technical assistance with countries in the developing world, and helping to lift people out of poverty. Founded as a Jewish state in 1948 following the aftermath of the horrific genocide that was the Holocaust, Israel's existence is a tribute to perseverance. From the beginning, many of Israel's neighbors rejected their right to exist--some even taking up arms and attacking the young nation. I have been, and will continue to be, an ardent supporter of Israel, and have advocated for robust U.S. engagement to help ensure their safety and encourage peace in the region. I am proud to rise in support of Israel on this exciting anniversary, and to celebrate the deep ties that have been forged between it and the United States--including in the Ninth District of Washington state. I look forward to the future.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, on Monday, April 16 and Tuesday, April 17, 2018, I was not present for recorded votes. I would have voted: YES on roll call vote No. 140 (on the motion to suspend the rules and pass H.R. 146, as amended), YES on roll call vote No. 141 (on the motion to suspend the rules and pass S. 167), and YES on roll call vote No. 142 (on passage of H.R. 5192).

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, on Monday, February 26 and Tuesday, February 27, 2018, I was not present for recorded votes. I would have voted: ``YES'' on roll call vote No. 81 (on the motion to suspend the rules and pass H.R. 1222, as amended), ``YES'' on roll call vote No. 82 (on the motion to suspend the rules and pass H.R. 2422, as amended), ``NO'' on roll call vote No. 83 (on the motion to table the appeal of the ruling of the chair), ``NO'' on roll call vote No. 84 (on ordering the previous question on H. Res. 748), ``NO'' on roll call vote No. 85 (on agreeing to the resolution H. Res. 748), ``NO'' on roll call vote No. 86 (on ordering the previous question on H. Res. 747), ``NO'' on roll call vote No. 87 (on agreeing to the resolution H. Res. 747), ``YES'' on roll call vote No. 88 (on the motion to recommit H.R. 4296, with instructions), ``NO'' on roll call vote No. 89 (on passage of H.R. 4296), ``NO'' on roll call vote No. 90 (on agreeing to the Walters Amendment to H.R. 1865), and ``NO'' on roll call vote No. 91 (on passage of H.R. 1865).

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I have an enormous amount of respect for the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, but I would remind everybody that, back in September, he and a majority of the Armed Services Committee Republicans voted against the CR, in September, 4 months ago. Why? Because at the time, he said: A CR is devastating for our military. It is the worst possible thing to do to our military. Four months ago, he said that, and now he says that we should vote for a CR. Think about it. Unless that vote, back in September, was simply hollow and hypocritical, he was prepared to shut down the government in September rather than continue to fund our military, and, by the way, the rest of the government, with a CR. He was right in September, but it took Democrats to actually have the courage of that conviction to say: No, we are not going to continue to gut the military drip by drip by drip, CR by CR. We are going to stand up and say, no. Pass appropriations bills. That is why we are doing this. I would also point out that five Republican Senators voted against the House bill. It is not a filibuster. They don't have 50 votes in the Senate for what you guys want to do. Mac Thornberry was right, back in September. A CR is terrible for the military. Don't support a CR. Fund the military.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, each year for the past 57 years the Congress has passed annual legislation to authorize the policies, programs, and activities of the Department of Defense. Today, we refer to this important legislation as the National Defense Authorization Act. Crafting this bill is no easy task, and it couldn't be done without the countless hours of work put in by the House Armed Services Committee staff and the attorneys at the House Office of Legislative Counsel. Today, I rise to honor a member of the legislative counsel team to thank him for his 31 years of service to the House of Representatives, and especially to the House Armed Services Committee. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School, Greg Kostka joined the House Office of Legislative Counsel in 1986 and has had a hand in the drafting of each National Defense Authorization Act since the Fiscal Year 1989 bill. While Greg's focus areas have been in military personnel, military justice, military construction, and readiness, he is known by his colleagues as someone capable of drafting in virtually any area of defense law if called upon. And from 2016 to 2017, Greg served as the defense team lead in the Office of Legislative Counsel. Greg's expertise and interest in the military extended beyond his time drafting legislation in his office. As an amateur historian of the Civil War, Greg wrote an unofficial history of the role of the Third U.S. Regular Infantry during the American Civil War. I understand that he also participated in Civil War reenactments. Greg was a regular participant in annual legislative update programs for the military's Judge Advocate Generals and accompanied committee staff on visits to several military installations. Greg brought his expertise and interest with him every day, and his work showed that he cared deeply about the men and women who serve in uniform. Greg's professionalism and institutional knowledge have been greatly appreciated by his colleagues in the Office of Legislative Counsel as well as by Members and staff who have had the pleasure of working with him over the years. After 31 years of dedicated service to the House of Representatives, Greg announced his retirement from the Office of Legislative Counsel on December 31, 2017. On behalf of all the Members and staff of the House Armed Services Committee, I offer my sincere gratitude to Greg for his expertise and wise counsel over the years and wish him, and his wife Jeanine, all the best in his retirement.