Ranking Member McCollum Statement at the Subcommittee Markup of the 2027 Defense Funding Bill

Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D-MN-04), Ranking Member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, delivered the following remarks at the subcommittee markup of the 2027 Defense funding bill:

– As Prepared for Delivery –

Mr. Chairman, I want to start by thanking you, and the majority and minority staff for the hard work on this bill. We all know the staff had long nights and lost weekends.  
Mr. Chairman, you have written a Fiscal Year 2027 Defense Appropriations Act that I believe, in concept, has a lot of support from the minority. I especially want to thank you for writing a bill that does not include, except for one exception, partisan riders. We should all applaud this decision. At the end of the day, we all want a bill that takes care of our warfighters, their families, and the civilian employees who serve alongside them.
The majority also worked to include priorities that are important to many Members and their constituencies. I thank the Chairman for working in a bipartisan way to include them. That is why it disappoints me that I am unable to support this bill as written.

This bill provides the Department of Defense with over one trillion dollars – an unprecedented topline. But this comes at the cost of deep cuts to other Appropriations bills that fund critical domestic programs that Americans depend on. They also fund our whole-of-government approach to national security.

The majority has made deep cuts to the Department of Education - and these cuts will make it harder to build the national security workforce of the future.

The majority has also cut the State Department, that will hamstring American diplomatic efforts at a time when the threats to our nation are growing. The bottom line is that funding the Department of Defense by over a trillion dollars will not keep Americans safe if we have mortgaged our future workforce and our strategic diplomatic efforts to pay for it. Regarding the funding in this bill, there are several areas where I have disagreements with the majority.

Here are just three examples: First, $605 million for the continued National Guard mobilization in Washington, D.C. This operation has not reduced violent crime in Washington. The only thing it has reduced is the readiness of these Soldiers. They have lost valuable training and exercises necessary for them to be ready for a conflict with a peer adversary.

Second, the bill includes $216 million for the National Guard Reaction Force. The National Guard does not need new funding to develop
law enforcement capabilities outside the scope of their jurisdiction. Those duties should be left to the federal, state and local law enforcement agencies trained to handle criminal activity.

Finally, the bill includes a new provision providing for an indiscriminate $1 billion cut to the Department, with very little Congressional direction. We have seen this Administration use a full-year CR and mandatory money for defense to circumvent Congressional direction.

So why would we want to give more permission to the Department to make indiscriminate cuts. If we provide them with this authority, we simply have no idea how they will wield it.

I’ll have more to say about these issues at the full committee markup. 

Separate from the base bill, I am very concerned about the President’s proposal for an additional $350 billion in mandatory funding for defense. The Reconciliation process is the wrong way to fund the Department of Defense – we all know that. Appropriators have no input on the enactment of these funds,
and Congress has no guarantee that a defense Reconciliation bill will pass. If it does not, it will be nearly impossible to fix all the “broken glass” that could occur by forcing these priorities into the base budget. That will put the Department and this Committee in a very difficult situation.

But, Mr. Chairman, I am hopeful that we will have an opportunity to resolve these issues as this process moves forward. You have my commitment to do that in a bipartisan way.

As I said, I cannot support the bill at this time. But I look forward to working with you to improve the bill as it moves through the legislative process.

I yield back.