Two veterans who serve in Congress said Thursday that it’s hard to convey to their non-serving colleagues how detrimental a continuing resolution is for military readiness.
Rep. Steve Russell, R-Okla., and an Army veteran, said it’s difficult for him to support a continuing resolution because he has experienced firsthand as a commander how disruptive it is to work under uncertain budgets.
“It’s no training, no ammunition, you can’t send troops to school, you can’t do training exercises because the funding is uncertain, and what happens is the longer you have these types of delays where your spending is not certain past a certain point … it really throws a monkey wrench into the military,” Russell said at a Heritage Foundation event. “It’s hard to convey sometimes to our colleagues the impact of that.”
Congress is preparing to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government running until December, at which point lawmakers will need to take another shot at passing spending bills in the lame duck session of Congress.
The Senate failed three times to advance a clean fiscal 2017 defense appropriations bill because of Democratic concerns that Republicans will put the rest of the government under a continuing resolution once it secures higher funding for defense. Experts have predicted the funding bills will end up passing in small groups this year after the election.
Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., a former Navy SEAL, said the continuing resolution can affect anything from delaying maintenance during a dry-dock period for a carrier strike group to not being able to buy more munitions, which he said are at “dangerously low” levels.
“The CR is going to hurt us, the military,” he said.
Readiness has been a major concern among leaders of the military, as high operational tempos and tight budgets have delayed maintenance and training. Russell stressed that the perspective of combat veterans in Congress is to put an emphasis on training ahead of all else.
“I would rather have people armed with broomsticks and keep their skills than all the fancy equipment in warehouses but no one trained to use it,” he said.
Russell also said members of the military will never testify before Congress that they can’t complete a mission due to a lack of funding or a lack of training.
“That will never come out of the mouth of a warrior,” he said. “They’re begging for help in their guarded, careful manner.”
