‘Sustain Our Military's Primacy’

SEC. MATTIS: ‘Congressional Action Will Ensure Our Military Can Defend Our Way Life, Preserve The Promise Of Prosperity, And Pass On The Freedoms You And I Enjoy To The Next Generation’

2018 National Defense Strategy: “To address the scope and pace of our competitors’ and adversaries’ ambitions and capabilities, we must invest in modernization of key capabilities through sustained, predictable budgets. Our backlog of deferred readiness, procurement, and modernization requirements has grown in the last decade and a half and can no longer be ignored. We will make targeted, disciplined increases in personnel and platforms to meet key capability and capacity needs. The 2018 National Defense Strategy underpins our planned fiscal year 2019-2023 budgets, accelerating our modernization programs and devoting additional resources in a sustained effort to solidify our competitive advantage.” (Department of Defense, Press Release, 2/12/2018)

JAMES MATTIS, Secretary of Defense: “I cannot overstate the negative impact to our troops and families' morale from all this budget uncertainty. Today's Congressional action will ensure our military can defend our way life, preserve the promise of prosperity, and pass on the freedoms you and I enjoy to the next generation.” (Sec. Mattis, White House Press Briefing, 2/07/2018)

• SEC. MATTIS: “If we are to sustain our military's primacy, we need budget predictability. …no strategy can survive without the necessary stable, predictable funding. Failure to modernize our military risks leaving us with a force that could dominate the last war but be irrelevant to tomorrow's security.” (U.S. House Of Representatives, Armed Services Committee, Hearing, 2/6/2018)

UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE COMPTROLLER DAVID NORQUIST: “We are appreciative of Congress raising the caps and ending the destructive effects of sequestration-level funding.” (Department of Defense News Briefing on the President's Fiscal Year 2019 Defense Budget, 2/12/2018)

• NORQUIST: “Many of you heard Secretary Mattis' comments about the damaging effect of sequestration…. With the bipartisan budget agreement, that hemorrhaging stops.” (Department of Defense News Briefing on the President's Fiscal Year 2019 Defense Budget, 2/12/2018)

‘Really Good Increases To Build Upon The Funding We Saw In ’17 To Get Readiness Up’

GEN. JAMES C. McCONVILLE, Vice Chief of Staff United States Army: “… you have a situation where you have … well-over half the combatant commander’s demands for forces come from the Army. So very high demand, and supply that just cannot meet that demand right now…. That’s why these – the budgets we’re seeing that we should see from the FY ’18, FY ’19 for Congress are so – are so welcome, because they are really good increases to build upon the funding we saw in ’17 to get readiness up in terms of end strength, in terms of training time, in terms of equipment and equipment readiness rates – all those things I need to do to build that readiness. Because, as soon as I build it, all these other things are consuming it and eating it back down.” (“Discussion with the Secretaries of the U.S. Military Departments,” CSIS, Washington, DC, 3/12/2018)

SEC. of the ARMY MARK ESPER: “We’re really appreciative of what Congress has done with regard to FY ’18 dollars, the increase is spectacular…” (“Discussion with the Secretaries of the U.S. Military Departments,” CSIS, Washington, DC, 3/12/2018)

ADMIRAL WILLIAM F. MORAN, U.S. Navy Vice Chief of Naval Operations: “Budget Control Act (BCA) funding caps over the past five years … challenged the ability of the Navy to adequately address the full range of needed investments while meeting near-term commitments…. During this time we prioritized funding for deployed naval forces first, and began accumulating risk to our surge forces, training forces, and our shore infrastructure. As a result, too many of our planes weren’t ready to fly, too many ships were not training at sea, our ship and aircraft maintenance production was severely delayed, and our shore infrastructure had degraded to unacceptable levels.” (U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support, Hearing, 2/14/2018)

• ADMIRAL MORAN: “Unpredictable budgets not only hamstring the Navy’s ability to prepare and plan, they are a major disincentive to industrial base investments in ship repair and modernization capacity we need to grow readiness.  No business organization, public or private, can withstand the fits and starts of our budget environment.” (U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support, Hearing, 2/14/2018)

GEN. STEPHEN W. WILSON, Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force: “Our military advantages and readiness shrunk due to the longest continuous stretch of combat in our nation’s history, coupled with years of inconsistent and insufficient funding. At the same time, our strategic competitors, notably China and Russia, have closed gaps in capability and capacity. The result is an overstretched and under resourced United States Air Force.” (U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support, Hearing, 2/14/2018)

• GEN. WILSON: “Readiness and lethality are derived from stable funding … We must get back to, and maintain, regular fiscal order … Prolonged budgetary stability is the most reliable way to ensure yesterday’s winning force does not become irrelevant tomorrow. To that end, we are deeply appreciative of recent efforts to begin the return of fiscal order …” (U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support, Hearing, 2/14/2018)

GEN. GLENN WALTERS, Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps: “Along with your authorizations as outlined in the 2018 NDAA, we require your support through the required appropriations to adapt your Marine Corps to compete, deter and win against the threats we face together. CRs and the looming threat of sequestration continue to disrupt our planning and directly threaten our readiness. Predictable and sustained budgets remain the essential requirement for the Marine Corps to meet our obligation as the Nation’s ‘force in readiness.’” (U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support, Hearing, 2/14/2018)

• GEN. WALTERS: “Your Marine Corps requires continued support from Congress with predictable budgets over a sustained period to fully mitigate the readiness challenges we face. Fiscal instability, resulting from persistent continuing resolutions (CRs) and looming and actual government shutdowns, produce the most significant risk to our readiness.” (U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support, Hearing, 2/14/2018)