Bill Lee: “I want to thank our ranking member for yielding and for his tremendous leadership on defense issues and so many other…”

“I want to thank our ranking member for yielding and for his tremendous leadership on defense issues and so many other issues that are critical to our national and domestic security. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this rule and to H.R. 5515, which is the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act. This bill authorizes $717 billion in defense spending. Yet we know that there is at least $150 billion in waste, fraud, and abuse currently over at the Pentagon. Now we are giving them more money. Shame on us. This is an already out-of-control, bloated Pentagon budget. It would also increase funding to $69 billion for wars that Congress has never debated or voted on. Once again, my Republican colleagues have used off-the-books spending gimmicks to further expand the bloated Pentagon budget. Enough is enough, Mr. Speaker. Instead of writing blank checks to the Pentagon, Congress needs to live up to its constitutional obligation to debate matters of war and peace. Yesterday I offered an amendment to sunset the 2001 and 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force after 8 months of enactment. Congress would have 8 months to debate and vote on a new AUMF before the repeal. Eight months is plenty of time. Mr. Speaker, we passed the 2001 AUMF within 3 days, mind you. Last week, of course, Speaker Ryan--and I say at the orders of Donald Trump--undemocratically stripped our bipartisan 2001 sunset amendment when the Defense Appropriations bill came before us.…”