WASHINGTON--Tomorrow the House Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing entitled, "The Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Budget Request from the Military Departments". Witnesses can be found on the committee website. It is a committee first to have the Service Secretaries and Chiefs testify together in this manner.
Thornberry Previews Hearing: The Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Budget
Budget Request from the Military
Tomorrow the House Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing entitled, "The Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Budget Request from the Military Departments". Witnesses can be found on the committee website. It is a committee first to have the Service Secretaries and Chiefs testify together in this manner.
Looking ahead to the hearing, Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX), Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said: "Tomorrow, the full committee will examine the President's budget request for the Armed Services. I am pleased to welcome each of the Service Secretaries and most of the Service Chiefs. On behalf of the Committee and the people we represent, I want to thank each of you for your service to the nation.
Since January, this Committee has focused on understanding the strategic environment and the many complex security challenges facing the United States. I believe that in order to fulfill our responsibilities under the Constitution, to 'raise and support' and 'provide and maintain' military forces to meet the nation's needs, we must spend time understanding the specific challenges staring us in the face, as well as the longer term trends and where they are taking us.
So, over the last two months the full committee has held a variety of closed and open, classified and unclassified sessions with government and non-government witnesses, as well as foreign leaders. We held the first ever committee retreat with distinguished speakers, including General Dempsey, who helped us look back at the past, as well as think about the present and the future. Among the topics we have examined in various sessions are:
- The world-wide threats facing us, - The status and trends of Islamic extremism, - State-based security challenges, - Threats in various geographic regions, - The status of conflicts in various regions, and - Technological superiority and the pace of technological change.
We have also received the recommendations of the Compensation and Retirement Commission, and of outside experts on the defense budget, and we have studied ways to improve the Department's acquisition of goods and services.
All of that work puts us in a better position, I think, to consider the Administration's proposed defense budget.
I am sure that Members will have questions on specific programs that were included or were left out of the Administration's request. I believe strongly that the job of the Congress under the Constitution and of this Committee is to exercise independent judgment on how best to meet the nation's security needs, giving a great deal of weight, of course, to the judgment of our military leaders, but not being a rubber stamp for any Administration. History has proven the wisdom of having a separate branch making independent decisions.
But whatever the details of the individual programmatic decisions, I also believe that we all need to look at the total resources devoted to defense, which is now about 15% of the federal budget, and to consider what the consequences would be if Congress approves significantly less in defense spending than the President has asked for.
I would say to our distinguished witnesses, especially those in uniform, this is the time to speak plainly.
You know the dangers we face around the world; you know the damage already done by a defense budget cut by one-fifth in real terms since 2010; you know the difficult choices ahead of us even with the President's request."
