OPINION — As Congress moves the fiscal 2024 Defense Department authorization and appropriation bills forward with more money to help needed recruitment, a handful of culture war amendments added by House and Senate Republicans on these measures promise bitter legislative fights in coming months.
For example, during a marathon almost seven-hour markup session of the fiscal 2024 Defense Appropriations Bill on June 22, the House Appropriations Committee approved language that would repeal a Pentagon policy set up on October 20, 2022, after the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision eliminated the Constitutional Right to abortion. That Defense Department October 20, 2022 policy entitled “To Ensure Access to Non-Covered Reproductive Health Care,” authorized paid leave and travel for any service member or dependent if they have to travel to another state to obtain an abortion or abortion-related services.
In response to that policy, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) has been holding up Senate confirmation of some 650 senior military officers, including a new Marine Corps Commandant. Starting July 10, when Marine Commandant Gen. David Berger is scheduled to leave, Assistant Marine Commandant Gen. Eric Smith, will become Acting Commandant although he has been nominated by the White House to succeed Berger and approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee to take over the top job.
Three other members of the eight-member Joint Chiefs of Staff will begin retiring in coming months. If Tuberville’s hold continues through October 1, when Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley is scheduled to retire. The Pentagon could be faced with no confirmed successor in place among the Joint Chiefs to lead the Army, Navy and Marine Corps, plus the Chairman.
Tuberville has called the Pentagon’s abortion travel policy “illegal,” and has said he would release his hold on nominations only after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin rescinds it.
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During the opening hours of the June 22 House Appropriations Committee markup, 20-year House member Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told the committee members, “I’m happy to have a serious debate. I’m interested in everybody’s point of view. I just hope in the course what we all remember – no more important task exists than passing this bill before the end of this year.”
That is because as a part of June 3, debt ceiling compromise legislation all discretionary spending, including by the Defense Department, would be cut by one percent if Congress does not pass all 12 required FY 2024 appropriations bills by Jan. 1, 2024, although implementing those cuts would be delayed until April 2024.
Cole, as chairman of the powerful House Rules Committee, also gave the committee the following advice: “In the end what I count on is the collaboration between the chairman and the ranking member and the good sense of this committee to recognize that whatever our partisan differences are over things, and these are important, I don’t diminish anybody’s concerns, we cannot end up in a CR [Continuing Resolution].”
Before we take on the negative parts of the legislation, let’s examine what been added to help with recruitment.
At a House hearing last March, top enlisted leaders of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Space Force said access to quality housing, health care and child care were chief concerns of military members and their families. They also said young recruits want better pay and benefits.
The House Appropriations Committee approved the Biden administration recommendation for a 5.2 percent pay raise to both service members and civilian Defense Department employees. Both House and Senate Armed Services Committees have also approved that 5.2 percent pay raise.
However, beyond that, the House Appropriations Committee members voted in favor of an unprecedented 30 percent pay raise for junior enlisted service personnel, which will raise the base pay for a newly enlisted person after serving for four months from $21,500 a year to $31,200.
Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif,), a former Navy pilot, pushed the measure through the committee arguing that currently a new enlistee’s pay “qualifies families for food stamps,” and that the increase will put the service member at the roughly $15-per-hour working level. “It’s still not high enough. In my opinion we could do better,” he added.
In the House committee’s draft report, it said “This investment [the 30 percent pay increase] will improve recruitment and enhance the quality of life for service members and their families. The Committee looks forward to working with the Senate and other committees of jurisdiction to enact this proposal.”
With regard to military housing, which has been a major problem both with on-base older barracks and off-base rentals, the House Appropriations Committee added almost $1 billion to the Biden administration request and included in its draft report that $2.3 billion is made available “to address unfunded requirements of the Services and Combatant Commanders and increases investment in infrastructure in the Pacific region, unaccompanied personnel housing, and child development centers.”
The House Armed Services Committee had already authorized $370 million to replace what the draft report called “poor and failing barracks and dormitories for single and unaccompanied service members,” and another $150 million for planning and design for future barracks.
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The House and Senate Armed Services Committees made changes in basic housing allowances for junior enlisted personnel that would reduce their out-of-pocket expenditures. Both committees also aided child care programs. They authorized $276 million dollars in military construction for new child development centers and another $60 million for planning and design to accelerate future child development center replacements.
Not to be outdone, the House Appropriation Committee approved $294 million for construction of seven new child development centers and $75 million for planning and design of new replacement child development centers.
In an attempt to deal with the falling rate of medically-qualified candidates for enlistment, the House Armed Services Committee added a section that would require the Secretary of Defense “to review and revise medical standards and waivers” every two years for appointment of an individual as an officer, or enlistment of an individual into the military.
Based on the findings, the Secretary should “update such standards and processes as may be necessary; and take such steps as may be necessary to improve the waiver process for individuals who do not meet such prescribed medical standards.” A report should then be submitted to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees on the findings of that assessment and actions carried out pursuant to them.
Another issue the House Armed Services panel dealt with is military spouse employment, which its report described as “a significant concern.” While the Defense Department Military Spouse Employment since inception in 2011 has helped in hiring of more than 250,000 spouses, the committee report said it wanted “to build on this success,” and directed a report by next March on how the Department on improvement of the program,
On the problematic side, the House Appropriations Committee cut $100 million from the budget that funded the Pentagon’s “measures relating to the Department of Defense diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility strategy, certain executive orders, and execute activities that promote or perpetuate divisive concepts related to race or sex.”
Among several other controversial riders added, one would prohibit the use of Defense Department funds that promotes or advances Critical Race Theory or any concept associated with Critical Race Theory.
There was a short but tense committee debate at the June 22 session on one package of such items where supporters of the measure claimed such “woke” activities hurt recruitment while defenders traced their diversity activities history back to President Truman’s integration of the military and the military services’ current diverse makeup. That GOP package passed by a 33-to-25 vote.
Another GOP-added measure would prohibit use of defense funds to perform medical procedures that attempt to change an individual’s biological gender. There is even one attached to the bill that would prevent granting, renewing or maintaining of security clearances for any of the 61 former intelligence and military officers that signed the October 19, 2020 “Public Statement on the Hunter Biden Emails” that came up during the 2020 Presidential election campaign.
When it comes to the Defense Department budget, the Armed Services and Appropriations Committees have tried over the years to maintain their histories of bipartisanship.
However, as a sign of what may be coming, on June 24 the GOP majority of the House Appropriations Committee, released a statement that said, “In recognition of the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling, House Republicans are protecting life in the Fiscal Year 2024 appropriations bills. The Military Construction and Veterans Affairs; Agriculture, Rural Development, and FDA; and Defense bills implement key pro-life provisions and prevent taxpayer dollars from being used for abortion on demand. Republican appropriators have received widespread support as they push back on Biden Administration overreach and strengthen pro-life provisions.”
Be prepared for debates in both houses of Congress when the Defense Department fiscal 2024 budget becomes a new battlefield in the U.S. culture war.
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