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U.S. Representative Vicky Hartzler (R-MO), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces, delivered the following opening remarks at a hearing on the FY 2022 budget request from the Army and Marine Corps on Ground Systems Modernization Programs.

Rep. Hartzler's remarks as prepared for delivery:

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would also like to first thank our witnesses for being with us today and for the hard work by all to put together this year's budget requests to Congress.

We have a lot to cover today, and I look forward to having a healthy discussion with our distinguished panel of witnesses, some of whom have testified before us on these same topics just over a year ago.

And what a year it has been, full of extraordinary challenges, uncertainty, and transitions for everyone, none more so than for our military and its supporting industrial base.

And now the President's FY 2022 budget request asks the Department of Defense, and the industrial bases which support it, to do even more with less. I, like many of my colleagues, am deeply concerned that the proposed topline does not adequately resource the 2018 National Defense Strategy, and further places military leadership in an untenable position of having to make impossible choices between near-term operational readiness, the sustainment of enduring capabilities, and long-term modernization priorities.

I commend our military leaders for their dedication and hard work to continuously reassess modernization investment priorities and reallocate already limited resources to fund the development and procurement of essential defense requirements and capabilities necessary to build a more lethal defense force. The Army in particular has terminated or reduced 310 existing programs in the last three years, including the elimination or delay of 37 programs in FY 2022 alone, to meet this end state.

I'm interested in the Army and Marine Corps' assessment of how a flat topline, and the resulting imposition of cuts and decreases to lower priority programs and investment accounts affect the health and stability of the industrial base. Cutting plans and funding for development and procurement programs creates vendor uncertainty, workforce disruptions, and a lack of predictability over time. Doing so also increases unit costs and risks the loss of industrial capacity, capability, and resilience when minimum sustaining rates are not met.

Finally, I want to stress the importance of jointness between the Army and the Marine Corps. I'd like our witnesses to discuss how they are continuing to communicate and coordinate on critical modernization programs that could address similar operational requirements such as body armor, long range precision fires, and next generation small arms weapons.