Rodney Frelinghuysen: “I thank the chair of the full committee for yielding, and I rise in support of the continuing resolution. We must pass…”

“I thank the chair of the full committee for yielding, and I rise in support of the continuing resolution. We must pass this continuing resolution to keep the Federal Government open and operating for taxpayers. Mr. Speaker, as you know, this legislation continues funding to pay our troops, for the Department of Defense operations, and for defense and maintenance, research and development, and procurement at fiscal year 2014 levels. But a word of caution to my colleague. We have had a great deal of talk lately from some quarters about eventually extending this continuing resolution to September of next year, 2015. That would be a very bad idea for the Department of Defense and many other important agencies and programs. While this approach might hold the line on spending in other agencies and programs, a yearlong continuing resolution has proven to be terribly costly for the Department of Defense. Funding under a CR promotes budget uncertainty that makes defense planning and managing programs nearly impossible. It is damaging to our men and women in uniform, our military readiness, our defense industrial base, and our defense posture as we face challenges around the world, in the Middle East, the Pacific, Africa, Europe, and considered additional actions in Iraq and also Syria. Three months ago, our full committee and our Defense Subcommittee produced a strong, bipartisan fiscal year 2015 Defense Appropriations bill.…”