Burr, Tillis get earful on budget impact at Bragg
Published April 21, 2017
Editorial by Fayetteville Observer, April 20, 2017.
North Carolina’s two U.S. senators toured Fort Bragg on Tuesday, and they encouraged the men and women in uniform to speak frankly about themselves and their Washington colleagues. “This is a free shot at us,” said Sen. Richard Burr to one soldier. “I’d take it.”
The bunch in Washington really deserves some shots, too, on both sides of the political aisle. Specifically, Burr and Sen. Thom Tillis, both Republican, heard about the awful effects on the armed forces when Congress, rather than passing a regular budget, relies on continuing resolutions or so-called “stopgap” budgets as an emergency measure to end the partisan bickering. The problem is that for the the military, a stopgap budget locks in the defense budget from the previous fiscal year. It frustrates the military’s attempts to plan, expand or draw down programs and has led to units relying on aging equipment and weapons.
The senators heard from soldiers with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, the heart of the military’s quick-reaction force, who said some of their equipment was in bad shape, and that they’re waiting on upgrades even to weapons as basic as the M4, the rifle that is the military standard. Members of the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade, based at Simmons Army Airfield, said its fleet of helicopters included ones that were 25 years old, and that fewer than half were the latest models. The team supports units ranging from the 82nd Airborne Division to the 10th Mountain Division.
The sum result: The installation whose readiness the whole country relies on is not as ready as it should be. Tillis and Burr were probably not entirely surprised by what they heard. Burr, a longtime senator, has extensive dealings in military affairs and is chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence. Tillis serves on the Armed Services and veterans committees. He said of the military: “They can’t plan out into the future. They’re living paycheck to paycheck.”
The question remains what can be done now and whether the two senators can impress upon their D.C. colleagues the seriousness of the situation. While Tillis said the Trump administration would make the military more of a priority, he heard Tuesday from a solider who complained three gyms on post remained closed because of Trump’s across-the-board freeze on federal hires (which was supposedly lifted last week.) Recall that the military has already had to do some bobbing and weaving to deal with the across-the-board federal cuts known as sequestration, another bipartisan boondoggle.
All of this steady attrition in equipment and resources arguably could not come at a worse time. President Trump has signaled a more muscular foreign policy than his predecessor, authorizing the first missile strikes against government forces under Syria’s Assad and dropping the U.S. arsenal’s largest non-nuclear bomb against ISIS forces in Afghanistan. He is also in an escalating feud with the repressive North Korean regime, and his team has made clear it has not put military action off the table.
If the senators left Bragg with one message, it is that they understand stakes — at least if we go by Burr, who said: “If you’ve got problems with readiness and equipment at the tip of the spear, imagine what’s downhill.”
That’s a well-founded concern.
