John Thune: “I also want to urge my colleagues to pass the $70 billion supplemental for the Department of Defense. The McConnell…”

“I also want to urge my colleagues to pass the $70 billion supplemental for the Department of Defense. The McConnell alternative is a funding bill that is free of political posturing, not influenced by armchair generals. The Department of Defense needs this money, and they need it now. Yesterday, Secretary Geren and General Casey testified before the Armed Services Committee on the state of the Army. When I asked Secretary Geren about what effect the lack of funding was having on the Army, he was frank and clear. The Army will run out of money by February and, what is worse, they will have to start scaling back services and canceling important civilian contracts. Moreover, when the President signed the Defense appropriations bill, it stopped the department's funding under the current continuing resolution. Now the Army is being forced to borrow from its operations and maintenance accounts in its base budget. The Army O&M budget is about $27 billion. Since the Army spends about $6.5 billion a month, that money will be gone by February. We are forcing our Army to borrow against itself. General Casey testified that in the December timeframe nine brigades are coming back from Iraq, and they may return to find services that supported them have been cancelled. Last, when we passed a timely supplemental bill, the Army depots were able to reset 27 brigades, process 123,000 large vehicles, and 10,000 humvees.”