President Joe Biden’s budget request to Congress has been pushed back another day and will arrive Friday, May 28, the administration announced Wednesday. Congress will be pressed for time to put together the annual spending bills, including the defense spending bill.
Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), chair of the Senate defense appropriations subcommittee, joined ADC Live to share his priorities. Here are some of the topics he hit on.
On the upcoming budget request: “I think the budget amount is important. But I think what’s even more important is making sure the money is spent correctly…. We’ll also look at the budget from a legacy weapons standpoint, making sure that if the military doesn’t need it… that’s a waste of money.”
On the Defense Community Infrastructure Program: “Communities that support military installations are absolutely critically important to our nation’s resilience, and we need to be smart in creating tools to be able to empower those communities and the bases… particularly when it comes to infrastructure. But as the budget comes over to Congress, we’re going to rely on feedback from the Defense Department.”
On the decision to keep earmarks out of the defense spending bill: “Earmarks are something that I don’t think we need in the military defense budget. I think that we all understand – and I’m talking about both sides of the aisle – the folks who serve here understand how important defense is…. You’ve got to do it right, because, quite frankly, the impacts of bad decisions come back, and I don’t want to muddy that water with individual earmarks, especially when we’re talking about legacy systems, quite honestly. And so we decided to shy away from them.”
On installation resiliency: “We’re seeing the climate change. We’re seeing impacts every day. We’re seeing its impacts on manpower, seeing its impacts on threats that are out there because of changing populations. And it’s nothing to sell short. And I think if we all work together – the DOD, the executive and legislative branches – I think we can all work together to make sure that our military has what they need to be able to address climate change and be able to be fully functional and moving forward.”
You can watch the full episode on adc.live.
