Adam Smith

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor and congratulate Suzette Cooke, the Mayor of the City of Kent, on her retirement. The citizens of Kent will miss her commitment, unstoppable work ethic, and passion. For many decades prior to serving as Mayor, Suzette Cooke was a devoted public servant. She was the Executive Director of the Renton and Kent Chambers of Commerce, the Economic Development Manager for the City of Burien, the Recreation Supervisor for Seattle Parks, and Director of the Kent Senior Center. She also served three terms in the Washington State House of Representatives, where she chaired the Committee on Children and Family Services. Under her leadership as Mayor, Kent has grown from a small, farming town, to a sizable city boasting a population of 125,000. Mayor Cooke has created a welcoming environment for people from a range of different backgrounds in a city that has become one of the most diverse in the country. In addition to Suzette Cooke's duties as Mayor, she has remained an active volunteer and has served with organizations that help better the community she loves. Impressively, she has chaired the Kent Firemen's Relief and Pension Fund Board, the King County Flood Control Zone District Advisory Committee, and the South County Area Transportation Board. She has also been a member of the King County's Regional Transit Task Force and the King County Board of Health. On top of her professional and civic engagements, Mayor Cooke has also found the time to remain an avid recreationist and has summited eight of Washington State's tallest mountains. It seems clear that, for her, no challenge is insurmountable. Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I recognize Mayor Suzette Cooke on her retirement. It has been a privilege to work with dedicated leaders like Mayor Cooke. I thank her for her service to her community and wish her all the best in retirement.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor and congratulate Dr. Jack Bermingham, the President of Highline College, on his retirement. Dr. Bermingham's academic career began in 1979, upon earning his Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Santa Barbara. After serving on the faculty of the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, he moved to Washington state where he later became the Dean of Social Sciences at Pacific Lutheran University. His career at Highline College began in 1994 when he joined the College's administration as Academic Vice President. His career at Highline progressed and he was appointed to serve as the college's President in 2006. During his tenure at Highline College, Dr. Bermingham fought to further education on many fronts. He expanded the College's collaborations with businesses, K-12 schools, four-year institutions, and local organizations in order to improve the community's access to education. Under his leadership, the college began offering four-year degree programs, among them the Bachelor of Applied Science in Cyber Security, which received regional, national, and international recognition. Dr. Bermingham also served on numerous boards and committees at the national and regional level. Dr. Bermingham has also been a leader in international education. He has presented at international conferences, including in Turkey, Hong Kong, and Botswana. He served as Chair of the Executive Committee of the Board of Community Colleges for International Development, which also recognized his outstanding work in international education in 2005. That same year, he was also recognized by the Polytechnic of Namibia for his instrumental role in the success of that institution's international partnerships. Additionally, for the past seven years under Dr. Bermingham's presidency, Highline College has hosted the Pacific Rim Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition which attracts teams from international universities and institutions. Throughout his career, Dr. Bermingham has been an ardent champion of diversity and social justice. Highline College has become the most diverse higher education institution in Washington state. It is also a place where many immigrants and refugees begin their journey to achieve their academic and professional dreams. Highline College was awarded the Equity Award from the Association of Community College Trustees in 2016, and for the last four years has been awarded the High Education Excellence in Diversity Award. Dr. Bermingham made it a priority for Highline College and their faculty to serve all students, regardless of color, creed, ethnicity, or economic situation. Dr. Bermingham's legacy is one of harmony, inclusion, and academic excellence. He has proven himself to be a tenacious leader, and has also shown to have the ability to connect with people through kindness and compassion. He will be greatly missed at the college by faculty, students, and the community. Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I congratulate Dr. Jack Bermingham on his twenty-three years of service at Highline College and wish him the very best in his retirement.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moulton), the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Carbajal), a member of the Armed Services Committee.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time each side has remaining.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Tsongas), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, 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. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper), who is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I 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. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Veasey), who is a member of the Armed Services Committee.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes. Mr. Speaker, first and most importantly, I want to concur with the remarks of Mr. Thornberry. We have had a great many people work together to produce a very important product. The staff, the Members, House and Senate, have all done an outstanding job. On the Armed Services Committee, we are very proud of the fact that we produce a legislative product every year. We actually do legislation the way it is supposed to be done. We work it through committee. Chairman Thornberry often outlines the number of different provisions that were asked for at the committee level, at the full House level and the Senate level, and we worked through those, reached compromise where we could, and produced a product that is truly a legislative product. That is testimony to the great work, first and foremost, of our staff. Both the House and Senate do an outstanding job with hundreds of complex issues and working with all the Members, and I thank them very much. It is also a testimony to the Members, both House and Senate, to their commitment to make sure that we pass the National Defense Authorization Act, understanding how important it is to support our troops and meeting our national security needs. I also want to thank our colleagues in the Senate. Mr. Thornberry and I oftentimes say those are some of our most contentious debates--not between us, but between us and the Senate. But they are handled, I think, with great dignity and intelligence, and I enjoy working with Senator McCain and Senator Reed. They are great partners in this final product. I am proud of this final product. There is a lot of very good policy in here. Mr. Thornberry mentioned several of the keys: acquisition reform, basically getting more out of the money we spend, making sure the system works better. I particularly want to thank Chairman Thornberry. He has taken a lead on this issue for a number of years. I think we have made significant improvements, even while acknowledging that we still have a long way to go to get the efficiency that we need out of the Pentagon budget, but that is an important change. I also think that this bill does a great job of supporting our troops and their families. As the chairman mentioned yesterday, it is basically the case that you recruit a servicemember but you retain the family, and that means that you have to provide for them. We fully fund the 2.4 percent pay raise in this bill and support our troops and their families in many other ways. This is a very good product. I will also say, I want to particularly thank Representative Langevin for working on this issue. This bill states that climate change is a national security threat. We make that the policy of the United States Congress, to acknowledge climate change and the impact that it is going to have on our national security, and Representative Langevin was tireless in making sure that that was part of this bill. So this is a good product. I am proud of it. I am proud of the work that we have done together to produce a legislative product that, as Mr. Thornberry says, none of us like everything that is in it, but we reached a compromise to produce a product on an important issue. The challenge that we have going forward is what the chairman mentioned at the end there: This bill funds, I think it is right around $696 billion in defense spending. It goes $80 billion, roughly, over the budget caps, and the bill can't do that on its own. Unless the budget caps are lifted and appropriators pass the appropriations bill, that doesn't happen; and we haven't made a lot of progress on that. I was thinking, today, back to 2011, in August, when we first passed the Budget Control Act. We were about 2 days short of not being able to meet our debt ceiling obligations when we passed that; and at that time, the hope was that we would come together on a compromise to deal with our deficit and our debt to get us on a fiscally responsible path. Well, over 6 years later, I can't say that we have made an enormous amount of progress on that, and that is a huge threat to our troops and our national security. I would also say that it is a threat to the nondefense discretionary budget and the rest of the budget as well. But without question, one of the greatest challenges the Pentagon faces--they don't know from one month to the next how much money they are going to have. Is this going to be the number? Is this bill going to work? I hope so, but we don't know. We have got to resolve that issue. We have got to figure out how to have a fiscally responsible budget so we can pass appropriations bills every year so all aspects of the discretionary budget can have some predictability. It is absolutely true, as the chairman and others have said, we have a readiness shortfall. What that means is we are not providing the equipment and the training to our troops necessary to fully prepare them to do the missions we are asking them to do. I have no doubt that part of that is underfunding. But another part of it is we have a National Security Strategy that is unclear and, as it is presented, is far greater than we would ever have the resources to match. I had a meeting with a Pentagon official who told me that they were very concerned because they were way short of having the funds necessary to meet their 2012 National Security Strategy. And make no mistake about it. As big and confusing as the Pentagon may look, they have a reason for everything that they spend. They have a plan in place. Right now, we don't have the funds to match those plans.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself an additional 1 minute. That is a huge problem. So going forward, while we do need to provide more resources and more stability, I also think we need to take a look at that National Security Strategy and say: Where are we spending money that we shouldn't be? What part of our strategy do we not need? If we can't do that, if we can't cut back, we are never going to be in a position to provide adequate funds to our troops, and, to me, that is the absolute worst result. Whatever the strategy is, the one thing that it absolutely ought to do is fund our troops sufficiently to meet it. To have a big idea of what we ought to be able to do and then to underfund the men and women whom we are asking to do it, I believe, has led to some of the accidents and deaths that we have had recently with our ships and with our planes. We need to adequately fund readiness to meet a mission that is achievable. That, we still need to get to; but, overall, this is a good policy bill. Again, I thank the chairman. I appreciate the partnership and really enjoyed working with him to produce this product. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Guam (Ms. Bordallo), who is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Readiness, for purposes of a colloquy with the chairman.

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

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time. As has been mentioned, this is an excellent bill that a lot of people did very good work on. I thank them for that. The only issue I want to raise in closing is the money. That is the sticking point and the difficulty that we have. This bill, as it is currently constructed, is $80 billion above the budget caps. In the 6 years since the budget caps passed, we have been unwilling to raise those. But we have a larger problem. We have a $20 trillion debt. Our deficit is close to $700 billion. It has no prospect of going down anytime soon. At the same time, we have other needs. During this debate, we focused like a laser on armed services and the needs of national security and our troops, as well we should. Those needs are incredibly important. I don't doubt that for a second. But you have to look at the whole or we are not going to be able to meet the needs of our national security and our troops. The amount of revenue that we take in as a country, unsurprisingly, impacts--or should impact--the amount of money that we can spend. We are having this debate now. We are talking about how underfunded the military is and how badly we need to shore up our readiness. I agree with all that. The rest of this week we are going to figure out how to make sure that our government takes in trillions of dollars in less money. That is wildly inconsistent. If we believe we have these needs, we ought to be able to pay for them. Then there are the other aspects of the budget. I know we are not supposed to talk about that during the Armed Services Committee debate on the National Defense Authorization Act, but the needs for infracture and education are things that also make our country strong, not to mention the Department of Homeland Security, the intelligence agencies, and other aspects of our national security, which are all part of the same whole. If we are going to get to a fiscally responsible place, we can't just say defense gets whatever it wants and then let the chips fall where they may elsewhere. On the Armed Services Committee, if we truly care about making sure that our troops have enough money, we need to do two more things in addition to this bill. Number one, we need to argue that we shouldn't do a massive tax cut to undermine our ability to fund defense and national security. Number two, we need to take a hard look at our national security strategy and figure out where we can save money. If we keep looking at every single section--it is too short here; it is too short here--we do not have enough money. Even if we had a fit of fiscal responsibility and decided to make cuts elsewhere--which hasn't happened, by the way--and we decided to raise revenue instead of cutting it, even if we did that, we are still looking at needs within the national security budget. When you look at the programs that people want to fund over the next 10 years, they are wildly beyond the amount of money that we have. We need a national security strategy that has an honest look at how much money we are going to have. Otherwise, we are not serving our troops. I know the comeback is: How can you put a price on national security? They should get whatever they need. The only problem with that is that they don't. If we have a national security strategy that exceeds the amount of money we have, the ones left holding the bag are our troops. They are the ones who are asked to do missions that they are not adequately trained to perform. They are the ones who are asked to train without the adequate resources to train properly. That is what we must fund. To do that, we need to do more than just pass this bill. We need to have a fiscally responsible approach to the overall budget. Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor Jorge L. Baron for his exemplary work on behalf of immigrant communities and to congratulate him on receiving El Centro de la Raza's 7th Annual Roberto Felipe Maestas Legacy Award. Jorge has served as the Executive Director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project (NWIRP) since 2008. NWIRP provides free or low-cost legal representation to over 10,000 immigrant and refugee families in the Pacific Northwest. With Jorge at the helm, the organization has steadily increased its size and budget and is now the largest of its kind in the region. Serving thousands of immigrants each year, Jorge and his colleagues at NWIRP believe that having access to an attorney is a fundamental human right. They strive to represent as many immigrant families as possible. Jorge immigrated from Bogota, Columbia when he was just thirteen years old. After graduating from Duke University, he worked in the film industry for several years until finding his passion for human rights law. He then attended Yale Law School. From his unique perspective on the immigration system, he not only understands the law, but also understands the hopes, fears, and needs that a new generation of immigrants face today. Jorge's many accomplishments include helping to secure the return of two individuals who were turned away from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport due to President Trump's travel ban, and defending the rights of detained immigrants at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma. The Roberto Felipe Maestas Legacy Award honors the legacy of Roberto Maestas by recognizing those who are dedicated to ``building the beloved community'' and eliminating poverty, racism, and social inequity. Jorge's work exemplifies these standards. Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I recognize Jorge Baron for his vital advocacy efforts on behalf of the immigrant community. I have no doubt Jorge will continue to advance human rights in the Pacific Northwest for many years to come.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I just really want to support Mr. Langevin for his leadership on this issue, something that we brought up in committee, and a program that really should be just discontinued, and I think the motion to instruct is perfectly appropriate. It was a program that was originally created, and the reason that we were selling back firearms to the public from the U.S. military, the program was literally created because we were worried that there wouldn't be enough people in our country that knew how to fire a weapon if we should need to draft them into a war. That is why the program was created. Obviously, for a whole bunch of reasons, that is no longer applicable. We have an all volunteer military. They are trained to shoot. They know how to shoot. We don't need to train random folks with weapons from the military. Also, originally, the program was simply aimed at rifles; and now they have thrown in, I think it is, around 100,000 pistols that they want to sell back to the public, in general. And this company makes money, the taxpayers don't, and we put 100,000 more weapons out on the streets. I think if there is one thing we should be able to agree on is that there is more than enough firepower out there amongst the public. We should not be taking military weapons and selling them back out into the public, and this motion, this amendment that Mr. Langevin first brought up has a very simple solution. We will hold onto those weapons; we will melt them down. I think that is the appropriate response. We do not need to sell more firearms out there into the public. I think the gentleman from Rhode Island has done an outstanding job showing leadership on this issue. I urge us to adopt this motion to instruct, and I urge the conference committee to adopt this as part of the final National Defense Authorization Act that we ultimately will pass.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor Dr. John Vassall II for his exemplary work in our community. For over thirty years, Dr. Vassall has made the greater Puget Sound Region a healthier and more equitable place. Dr. Vassall has made many valuable contributions to Washington state's medical community. In 1978, he received his medical degree from the University of Washington. He then completed two competitive residency programs at Grady Memorial Hospital and Emory University Affiliated Hospitals. After his residencies, Dr. Vassall returned to the Puget Sound region in 1983, when he accepted an offer at Swedish Medical Center, where he has remained for 34 years. As Chief Medical Officer, he has been a key player on an outstanding medical team. In 2006, the Washington chapter of the American College of Physicians named Dr. Vassal]. the Internist of the Year. Dr. Vassall's contributions to our community have not been limited to his professional work at the hospital. For 15 years, Dr. Vassall served as the vice-speaker and speaker of the House of Delegates for the Washington State Medical Association. He is a trustee at Seattle University and for the American Hospital Association, as well as a board member at the Washington State Hospital Association and the Washington State Medical Association. Through these roles, Dr. Vassall has shaped the future of medicine and has advanced quality care in Washington state. His long record of advocacy earned him the Alumni Service Award from his alma mater in 2008. Dr. Vassall's contributions to Washington's health care industry cannot be overstated. It is because of physicians like Dr. Vassall that the Greater Puget Sound Region is now a global center for health care innovation and education. Again, I would like to thank Dr. Vassall for his contributions to Washington's 9th District, and I look forward to working with him in the future as we work for a healthier world.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

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

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

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I urge support of this bill. I want to begin by thanking the chairman and all of the members of the committee. As has been noted many times, this is the most bipartisan committee in Congress; and I think, once again, even in difficult circumstances, we have proved that this year. That is, in large part, due to the leadership of Chairman Thornberry. I thank him for that. I also thank our staff, which does an unbelievable job. There are hundreds, if not thousands of amendments, that come at them. They manage that. You see the very few that actually come through either in committee or on the floor. They work through literally thousands of ideas and do an amazing job, so I really want to thank our staff for their great work. In particular, I want to thank Vickie Plunkett. This will be her last markup. She is retiring. She has done a fabulous job for our staff. She basically exemplifies everything I just said about how great our staff is, how they work in a bipartisan manner and do a great job to serve our country. So, I thank Vickie for her incredible service to our committee and to the country. Mr. Chairman, I think this is a good bill that we should support because, make no mistake about it, what the chairman and many others have said is true: we face a complex threat environment. The U.S. national security is at risk. I take Mr. Nolan from Minnesota's point that spending a lot of money on wars that we didn't need to engage in does cost us at home, and that point is valid, but so is the point that we face threats we must confront. North Korea is testing intercontinental ballistic missiles. It is no doubt that their goal is to develop a nuclear missile, capable of striking the U.S. Being from the West Coast--and they always say that it could hit Seattle. I don't know why they don't talk about any other city on the West Coast. It could hit a lot of different places. We need to be worried about that. We need to be prepared to stop that. Russia continues to undermine not just our elections, but democracy itself, across Europe, and even down in the Middle East and Africa. We need to be prepared to confront that. We face a terrorist threat. 9/11 killed 3,000 people in this country because we weren't ready to prevent it. The groups that supported that attack have not gone away; they have metastasized. Now, I will completely agree with some of my friends on the left, who think that the terrorism threat is often overblown. I think it is often also a mistake to demonize the Muslim religion. And even though I know some people don't do that, they simply want to confront groups like al- Qaida and ISIS, Steve Bannon, who works right next to the White House, has said that Islam is a totalitarian ideology of subjugation, it is not a religion. He thinks all Muslims are a threat. To the extent that we adopt a national security policy that views the world that way, we make the problem worse. That is what ISIS wants; that is what al-Qaida wants. They want a clash of civilizations. We should not want that. They have killed more Muslims than any other religion on Earth. Muslims have the biggest stake in this. We must work with them, not against them, to confront that terrorist threat that ISIS and al-Qaida and others present. On the broader budget issue, as I mentioned a couple of times, the first 6 months of this year, we had a number of folks in the Pentagon come over and spell out all kinds of nightmare scenarios about every bad thing that could conceivably happen--some of ones that I mentioned, and hundreds of others that I haven't. And I understand that. That is their job. Their job is to worry about what could come at us. But, past a certain point, that isn't helpful. We need a plan, we need a strategy to confront this, and we need to make choices. That is the one thing that I am still concerned about with this bill. It really doesn't make choices. It continues to spend money in a variety of different places, without a recognition of finite resources and choices that need to be made about how to confront the threats that are most dangerous to us--how to spend that money in the best way possible. That is something that I think we need to work on going forward. We also have the budget problem that I described. And I won't give the same full speech that I gave before, but I will simplify it and say that there is a consensus in Congress and in the country that we need to balance the budget without raising taxes and without cutting any programs that people might like. That doesn't work. It simply is not possible. It doesn't add up. That is why we don't have a budget resolution. Any budget resolution that the Republican Congress could put on the floor will fail to meet some of the promises that they, and others, have made. We have got to be honest about that, because this bill, again, is $72 billion over the budget caps. It is actually $91 billion over the budget caps, if you add in--well, sorry, $81 billion over the budget caps, if you add in the money that we took from OCO to put into the base. So, if we do not raise the budget caps, this goes away and leaves us, once again, in the land of uncertainty for the Department of Defense. We have to make choices on the budget going forward so that we don't leave the Defense Department in the lurch, not knowing how much money that they are going to have. So, we still don't have a budget resolution in front of us. And, lastly, I do want to point out that the rest of the budget does matter. The chairman and I have had a little bit of an argument about this: we are the Armed Services Committee, we should pay attention to that; you know, don't sacrifice our troops for the sake of domestic--he always says political priorities. That is the one word in his argument that I find not really appropriate. There is nothing political about it. It is a policy choice. It is basically deciding what domestic priorities are important. And, make no mistake about it, the discretionary budget is a zero-sum game. I mentioned yesterday the President's budget: a $54 billion plus- up for defense, and $54 billion cut from nondefense discretionary. So don't tell me that one thing doesn't have anything to do with the other. But even the so-called budget resolution, the budget agreement that the House Republicans have come up with, but have not yet dared to put to a vote, has a $72 billion plus-up for defense, and a $5 billion cut for domestic spending. So, again, the two are absolutely connected. What are we talking about with domestic spending? I won't go through all of it. I will just mention a couple of things. Yesterday, I mentioned our infrastructure. Bridges are collapsing all across the country. I saw a big story yesterday about how the Memorial Bridge is about to fall down. We have incredible infrastructure needs that lead to the strength of our country that are connected, just like national defense is to the strength of this Nation. But another example, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center--it is close to my district, it is in Seattle--is doing incredible research right now, that figured out how to not use chemotherapy but actually go in, take out the white blood cells that aren't working, get them to work, and send them back in to successfully fight cancer. This has worked for blood cancers. They just started studies on lung cancer. But, basically, we could cure cancer, without going through the hell of chemo. The President's budget would cut Fred Hutchinson's funding by over two-thirds. I don't think curing cancer is a political agenda. That is a very real need that has an incredible impact on the lives of Americans, just like national security. It is like making sure that North Korea doesn't hit us with a nuclear weapon, making sure that terrorist groups don't attack us. Curing cancer, stopping bridges from collapsing, these are priorities. Because we are not making budget choices, these are priorities that get pushed aside. And if you plus-up defense and take it from nondefense discretionary, then you are having that very real impact. Now, I am not going to say it has to be dollar for dollar. I think it probably should be, but we can negotiate around that. But to simply gut the nondefense discretionary budget to plus-up defense does not make this country safer. We heard yesterday, hey, in a time of war, you make domestic sacrifices. And we have all read about World War II, all the domestic sacrifices that were made at that time. I get that. But you know what else you do in a time of war? Well, you don't cut taxes. You raise them. Prior to 2001, we had never gone to war without raising taxes or issuing war bonds or, basically, asking for more money. But that, of course, we cannot do. Again, I will say I care enough about the national security of this country, I would raise taxes to pay for it instead of simply adding to the deficit or stopping the ability of somebody like the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center from finding a cure for cancer. That is the choice that I would make. These choices are not being made in this budget resolution, and I think that places us at risk. Lastly, the nondefense discretionary budget is the State Department, it is USAID, it is the Department of Homeland Security. If you are going to have a national security strategy, it can't just be the military. And you know who will tell you that more often than anybody? The military. They don't want to bear the entire burden. General Secretary Mattis had the best quote on this. If you are going to cut diplomacy, if you are going to cut development, you better give me four more divisions because that is how many more wars I am going to have to fight. So to say we are going to add all this money to defense, and defense is so important, and if you are against it because of other priorities, then you just don't care about the troops, is incredibly disingenuous because all of these other things matter to the national security of this country. And all we are getting out of the majority right now is an effort to plus-up defense at the expense of everything else. I say an effort because they haven't actually voted on it yet. It hasn't actually happened. And it is more likely than not that this bill--good, though, it is--and the great work that has been done on a number of different policy divisions that don't have anything to do with the money, the good work on acquisition reform to try to make sure we get more for the money that we spend, all of that is in jeopardy because this bill has at least $72 billion in it over the budget caps that is, more likely than not, not going to be there come October 1 or the end of this year. So if we don't make the choices on the budget that reflect the priorities of the entire country, that actually reflect the budget numbers, then we are doing a disservice to the men and women who serve our country. It is a good bill. It is going to be better once we figure out the budget issues and actually start making the choices that are necessary to make us stronger in every aspect of society. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I have no further speakers on this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I don't have any speakers either, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I have no other speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moulton), a member of the Armed Services Committee.