Mike Gallagher: “I stand before this Chamber today in strong support of this bipartisan defense bill that will help protect this country…”

“I stand before this Chamber today in strong support of this bipartisan defense bill that will help protect this country and take care of the young men and women who sacrifice for our freedom on a daily basis. We got a lot of good things done in this year's process. We have an $858 billion top line, an increase of $45 billion over President Biden's defense budget request. We continue to support and improve the lives of our servicemembers and military families by authorizing a military basic pay raise of 4.6 percent. We also have $500 million for additional housing allowances to counteract the skyrocketing cost of rent. I also support the repeal of DOD's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. We have a number of provisions looking at improving mental health services for servicemembers and their families. The conference agreement also reinforces that parents of children attending DOD schools have the right to review curriculum, instructional materials, and disciplinary policies. Also critically important is ensuring that our professional military education is geared toward warfighting. I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Speier), our chair, for her work with me on looking into the state of our professional military education enterprise and for all the work that we have done together over the last 2 years. I will end by thanking the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin), as well, for his remarkable service. We worked together on the Cyberspace Solarium Commission.…”