Up next, the chiefs of the army, air force, navy and marine corps testify on their budgets and the impact of repeated continuing resolutions in place of more longterm appropriations for the military branches. Held by the House Armed Services committee, this is about two hours, forty five minutes. [ banging gavel ] the committee will come to order. After having explored the next steps of defense reform in yesterdays hearing, we now turn to what is needed to repair and rebuild our military, and im grateful to each of the distinguished Service Chiefs for being with us today. Theres widespread agreement that funding cuts under the budget control act, plus a series of continuing resolutions, coupled with a pace of required deployment have damaged the u. S. Military. I believe that damage has gone far deeper than most of us realize, requiring more time and more money to repair than is generally expected. Theres plenty of responsibility to go around for the current state of affairs, with both congress and the obama administration, with both republicans and democrats, with both military and civilian leadership. Among other problems, defense funding has gotten caught up in partisan back and forth on other issues and has even been held hostage to other priorities. We need to get back to evaluating defense needs on their own, without regard to any agreement or disagreement we may have on other issues. The men and women who serve deserve at least that. Most important thing now is to repair the damage. We have the chance to begin doing so by passing a full appropriation bill for this year, acting favorably upon the supplemental request, and then enacting adequate authorization and appropriations for fiscal year 2018. Immediate issue before us is the expiration of the current continuing resolution on april 28th. We in the house passed a full appropriation bill for fy17 on march 8th by a vote of 37148. The senate has not yet acted on it. As ive said before, i will not vote for a defense continuing resolution for the rest of fiscal year 17. It would simply do too much harm. Fundamental to fixing a problem is to expose it and understand it. I understand that we have to be cautious about exposing our vulnerabilities, but in order to do better for the military and for the country, we must have the best professional military judgment our Witnesses Today can offer on the current state of our military forces and on what a cr or inadequate funding would mean for them. To get on a better track, we all have to be clear and candid with the American People, and thats exactly the purpose of todays hearing. Mr. Smith . Thank you, mr. Chairman, and i agree with much of what the chairman had to say. Certainly, over the course of the last sixplus years, you know, the uncertainty that has accompanied the Defense Budget has made it very, very difficult to operate. Weve had one government shutdown, countless threatened government shutdowns, and numerous crs, and i think most people dont appreciate what a cr means. Oh, youre just continuing the budget. It basically means you cant start new programs, you cant end programs that need to be ended, and as importantly, a lot of times youre not sure what qualifies as which. All of you have to go through a very difficult task when we dont have a regular appropriations bill of figuring out exactly what you can and cannot spend money on, and that is a colossal waste of your time and also very expensive. We should give you a clear budget every year, clear appropriations, to give you the freedom to implement that as is necessary. We have not done that. I agree with the chairman, theres plenty of blame to go around on that front, but the lack of budget clarity has caused no end to problems. I also agree the force is unquestionably been stressed over the course of the last 15 years. Certainly, with two major wars, in afghanistan and iraq, and the ongoing struggle against the extremism all across the world. Our military has been given a large number of assignments and couple that with the inadequate unpredictable number of resources, and you have a problem. I think theres a larger thing we need to get at, and i agree we need an appropriations bill and we need to fund the military to meet the mission. I dont agree that we can somehow pull defense out of the entire rest of the federal government, look at it totally separately as if all the other money that we spend in the government doesnt matter, because, unfortunately, we do have other priorities than Just National security. Some of which are really rather important. In fact, some of them have to do with security. The intelligence budget, the department of homeland security, but also our infrastructure, which is crumbling at an alarming rate. And regrettably is a tradeoff, and i think the budget that President Trump sent up this year makes that absolutely clear. He plussed up defense by 54 billion and he took that 54 billion out of everything else, including a 31 cut in the state department. And as the secretary of defense, general mattis said, if youre going to cut the state department and development aid, then you better give me five more divisions, because im going to have a lot of wars to fight. It is all of a piece, as much as i would love to be able to pull defense out and say we can ignore everything else, we arent just members of the defense committee, we are members of congress, and were responsible for all of that. Towards that end, ill make one final point. As we look at how we put together a Defense Budget, i agree with the chairman, we should not give the men and women who serve in the military tasks and assignments that we do not equip and train them to do. That is where we are at right now. That is completely and totally unacceptable. I do not, however, agree that the answer is to simply continue to expand what those tasks and responsibilities should be and kind of hope that we somehow come up with more money to meet it, because the tasks and responsibilities that have been described by the president and what he says he wants the military to do, he sent up a 603 billion budget. That doesnt even come close to meeting those tasks and responsibilities that are outlined. Even the 640 billion that the chairman here and chairman of the senate Armed Services committee talked about doesnt come close to meeting that either. So what we also need to do, in addition to rightly pointing out the lack of resources and the unpredictability, is come up with a set of tasks and missions for the department of defense, for the men and women who serve in the Armed Services, that we can actually fund. We cannot continue to say, well, you got to do this, got to do this, we dont have the money, dont have the money, should have the money, dont have the money, should have the money. We know where our budget is at. We know were 20 trillion in debt, running a nexus deficit of 600 billion, and there are other needs in our budget, so i think we also have to be really smart about how we spend the money in defense and about what missions we decide our men and women should be ready, trained, and equipped to serve. So i hope thats part of the discussion, as well, this morning. I look forward to your testimony, and i thank you all for your service. Were pleased to welcome this morning the general mark milley, chief of staff of the army, admiral john richardson, david goldfein, and robert neller, commandant of the marine corps. Without objection, your full written statements will be made part of the record, and let me just say again how much i appreciate each of you being here. I know you have a lot of responsibilities on your shoulders. I know, for example, the commandant came back a day early from an overseas trip, but i believe the opportunity to get funding for the military on a better track deserves all of our careful attention and discussion. Again, thats the purpose of todays hearing. Thank you all for being here. General milley, wed be pleased to turn to you for any oral statement youd like to make. Thanks to chairman thornberry and Ranking Member smith and all the distinguished members of the committee for the opportunity before you today. I appreciate that, and i know we all do. The world is becoming a more dangerous place. With simultaneous challenges to the United States interests and from russia, china, iran, rapidly growing threat from north korea, and an ongoing series of wars against terrorists. This is no time in my professional view to increase risks to our National Security. A yearlong cr or a return to the bca funding will do just that. It will increase risk to the nation, and it will ultimately result in dead americans on a future battlefield. To execute current operations, sustain readiness, while making progress toward a more capable and lethal future, the United States army requires, most importantly, predictable and consistent funding. The lack of fiscal year 2017 appropriations and no supplemental increase in funding will significantly and negatively impact readiness and increase risk to our force. Additionally, a return to budget caps due to bca sequestration in fiscal year 18 forces the army to reverse our efforts to improve readiness and will lead to a hollow army. In the last two years, we have made steady progress in our core of war fighting skills across multiple types of units, but we have much work to do to achieve full Spectrum Readiness necessary to meet the demands of our National Military strategy and the defense planning guidance. Advances by our adversaries are real, and the cumulative effect of persistent and destructive instability for eight consecutive years is increasing risk, not only to the army, but to the nation and will result in unnecessary u. S. Casualties. Readiness to prevent, or if necessary, fight and win wars, is a very, very expensive proposition. But the cost of preparation is always far less than the cost, the pain, the blood, and the sacrifice of regret. Readiness is the armys number one priority. Our current readiness funding requirement is submitted in the amendment to the fy17 president s budget is 3 billion above fiscal year 2016s operations and maintenance levels. Our planning levels request for additional appropriations on filling critical gaps in readiness, specifically in armor, air defense, field artillery, and aviation. If forced to operate under a yearlong cr, this will not happen. Army current readiness and efforts to close critical gaps will be severely impacted. Funding under cr for a year will result in a dramatic decrease in training, starting next month in may, and by 15th of july, all Army Training will cease except those units deploying to afghanistan or iraq. Our ctc, collective Training Exercises, at ntc, jrtc, will be significantly degraded and all efforts to increase Army Strength as mandated in the fy17 National Defense authorization act by you for the regular army, the National Guard, and the army reserve, will also cease. The cumulative effect of training shortfalls, combined with personnel constraints, will result in an army that is less ready to meet not only current requirements of commanders, but limit our ability to ensure our allies, deter our adversaries, now and in the future. Also procurement efforts currently on hold will remain on hold, preventing the army from immediately addressing known shortfalls in gaps and combat systems and importantly munitions. Electronic warfare, cyber programs, air and missile defense, long range fires, protection, and mobility programs, along with several other modernization initiatives. We will lose our current overmatch. The current battlefield is already very lethal, but on future battlefields will likely prove far more lethal than anything we have reasonably experienced. Our adversaries have studied us and are rapidly leveraging available technology, while the army has yet to fully recover from the effects of the shutdown in 2013. Time is not our ally. A return to the bca caps will damage the armys ability to build and maintain readiness at appropriate levels and result in multiple years of negative impacts on the future of our army. While we cannot forecast precisely when and where the next contingency will arise, it is very likely to require a significant commitment of u. S. Army ground forces, sustaining the high levels of performance that your army has demonstrated in the face of increasing challenges requires consistent, longterm, balanced, and predictable funding. A yearlong continuing resolution or return to bca funding caps absolutely will result in a u. S. Army that is outranged, outgunned, and outdated against potential adversaries. With your support, however, in passing the fy17 budget and the supplemental, the army will Fund Readiness at sufficient levels to meet current demand, build readiness for contingencies, and invest in the future force. Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and i look forward to your questions. Admiral richardson . Thank you, mr. Chairman, Ranking Member smith, and distinguished members of the committee, for the opportunity to discuss the impacts that another continuing resolution, in fact, does to leverage general milleys statement, continuing uncertain and inadequate funding levels would do to the navy. And two points i just want to clarify and clearly convey right off the top, is that, mr. Chairman, we need that fy17 bill and the supplemental in order to keep Navy Programs and key investments moving forward, to recover readiness this year, prevent digging the readiness hole deeper, and to sustain it into the near future. Theres a growing gap between the missions we are asking our navy to do and the unreliability and shortage of the resources provided to do those missions, as Ranking Member smith highlighted. We got to where we are today because of 15 years of operating at wartime pace. Eisenhowers strike group was deployed five times in the last seven years. Contrast that level of effort with eight years of continuing resolutions and five years of budget restrictions imposed by the budget control act and budget balance gap. This gap creates years of stress, over and above stress of deployed operations and the navy team in fact, the joint service team, the joint force team, sailors, civilians and their families, have been absorbing that stress. And so in the simplest possible terms, as i speak to you today, if we dont get the funding just described, lots of our aviators will not fly, and they cant train. We wont have the spares to fix their planes, we wont have the gas to fly them. We may not have the pay to keep our pilots in the services, and we wont have ready aircraft for tomorrows pilots. Lots of sailors will not go to sea. Cant afford the maintenance to fix their ships. Cant afford the gas to steam them. Ships remain tied up to the pier. In many ways this is irreversible. You cant get lost training time back. We will be less proficient when we do go to sea, when we do fly. Our pilots will be less experienced, which is a daunting fact when you consider what were asking them in wartime. Our sailors will have less time at sea to practice together, to train together, to achieve the intricate teamwork needed to win in modern warfare. And the stress doesnt stop when they return to home port. Current funding without the 17 bill and the supplemental will only allow for one months notice before they move their families, placing a huge burden on their families, especially those with children. Well continue to ask our people to work in sub standard conditions in over 6,000 buildings, in dismal condition, awaiting repair, replacement, or demolition. At the unit level, well have to shut down air wings in the shortterm, and in the longterm, shortage of airplanes will get worse. Well delay important upgrades that help us keep pace with the threat these delays or cancellations will put sailors at greater risk from cyberattacks with a growing threat of antiship missiles in the areas that they routinely operate. Submarines will lose their certification to dive. Ships will be at the pier instead of under way. Failing to maintain our equipment has the same net effect as cutting force structure. Whether we leave a ship tied up to the pier because its not repaired, or we decide not to build a new ship, both mean one less ship at sea. Not being able to fly an existing aircraft or not buying a new aircraft, both mean one less plane in the air. As the general said, this is not a theoretical debate. While we talk about whether or not to keep ships in port and aircraft on the ground, our competitors are making steady progress and gaining on us. Americas risks are getting worse, as other nations grow their fleet and operate them in the pacific, atlantic, indian, and arctic oceans. As they extend their influence over trade routes that are the life blood of the international economy, including ours. I just got back from spain where i saw our sailors in action. Visited the uss ross, now in the increasingly contested waters of the eastern mediterranean. Those sailors know clearly that they are sailing into harms way. But they took an oath to support and defend the constitution, and they live up to that commitment every day, undaunted by the competition i just described. And their teammates do this every day all around the world. They are tough, dedicated, proud of what they do. Back here at home, theres less evidence that we get it. There is tangible lack of urgency. Were not doing what we should to help them win. In fact, we are here today to discuss plans, potential plans, that would make their lives harder, that will further shrink their advantage. Mr. Chairman, i urge congress to pass the fy17 bill and give favorable consideration to the supplemental. It will make us more ready, more competitive, and relieve a lot of stress that is on our people. Together, we can find ways to maintain our edge. There is so much at stake. Thank you for the chance to testify, and i look forward to your questions. General goldfein . Thank you, chairman thornberry, Ranking Member smith, distinguished members of the committee, for hosting this critically important and timely hearing. Its a privilege to be here with my fellow joint chiefs. Your air force is globally engaged, both here in the homeland and deployed, to capture and control the high ground, as we pro