Source: United States Senator for Oklahoma James Inhofe
U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), today delivered opening remarks at a SASC hearing on the Army’s fiscal year 2023 budget request.
Inhofe: Thank you, Chairman Reed. I join you in welcoming our witnesses. I had an opportunity, and have in the past, several times, of getting to know them quite well, and I appreciate the efforts that they’ll be — and the challenges that they are facing right now.
For four years, this committee has used this 2018 National Defense Strategy and Commission Report as our roadmap. We’ve gotten our money’s worth out of this thing over the last couple years. Rightly, the Biden administration recently released a defense strategy to underscore the accelerating threat of the Chinese Communist Party and its unprecedented military modernization. Unfortunately, the administration has sent to Congress a budget request that does not provide the resources necessary to combat that threat or others that we are facing right now.
Not only does it fail to provide the 3 to 5 percent real growth recommendation that’s in this NDS report that we have been following for a number of years, it doesn’t even keep up with the record-high inflation that we are facing. The absence of real growth in the request combined with the record-high inflation would leave our military under-resourced. And this is most evident in the budget request for the Army.
Of course, those of us old Army guys always observe the Army gets the short end of this stuff when changes are made. Am I the only one that ever observes this, Mr. Chairman?
Reed: No, sir.
Inhofe: OK. Anyway. The request cuts military construction by 39 percent. It cuts research and development by 6 percent. It cuts procurement by 7 percent, and, notably, the procurement cut would substantially slow modernization of armored brigade combat teams, which are essential to deter further Russian aggression. Given the inadequate budget request, it’s no surprise that the Army’s unfunded priorities list — what I call the risk list — totals $5.1 billion. I look forward to understanding from our witnesses the risks associated with this budget request.
Additionally, I look forward to hearing what will be done to overcome a significant recruiting challenge. This is one that I have not seen before, and I think it’s more severe than any challenge that we’ve had in the past. And that is that we’re now facing, just in this year, some reduction of requested — a shortfall of 12,000. So, Mr. Chairman, clearly we’ve got a lot to do to ensure that our military has the resources they need. Thank you.