WASHINGTON — Lawmakers made clear they oppose the Pentagon unilaterally taking $3.8 billion away from programs like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the V-22 Osprey in the current year's defense budget, and redirecting it to the border wall.
"I support walls. But I am deeply concerned about where we're headed with the Constitutional issue about Congress' role in national defense and whether that is being overridden," said Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) in a contentious House Armed Services Committee hearing Wednesday.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff responded that the money represents just one half of one percent of the defense budget, and therefore, he said, its loss won't compromise national security.
"This reprogramming of $3.8 billion is not a significant, immediate, strategic negative impact to the overall defense of the United States of America," said Gen. Mark Milley. "We can defend the United States of America."
Lawmakers also criticized D.o.D. plans to cut shipbuilding by $4.1 billion in 2021, eliminating one Virginia Class submarine to be constructed in part at Newport News Shipbuilding.
"This budget fails the test in terms of national defense strategy," said Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Connecticut). "This is a punch in the gut to shipyard workers, the metal trades who are making the life commitments to learn how to be welders and electricians and carpenters, to see this radical rudder turn in terms of shipbuilding,"
Defense Secretary Mark Esper defended the cut as necessary to fund the maintenance backlog on existing ships in the fleet
"I support what the Navy did, moving $4 billion from shipbuilding to maintenance," he said. "The concern that the CNO has, that the Acting Secretary has and I have is that we have a hollow Navy. Over the last five years, 75 percent of our surface ships never left maintenance on time."
Things got especially testy when Esper was vague about when he would present Congress with a 30-year shipbuilding plan, saying only that it will be "at the appropriate point in time."
Rep. John Garamendi (D-California) seemed particularly angry.
"You are out of line, sir," he said, directing his comments to Esper. "The law is quite clear. When you submit your budget, you are to submit the shipbuilding plan. And for you to say you're going to give it to us in your own good time and when you are ready, you are not in line with the law."
Esper did not respond.
The Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday and the Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly are scheduled to appear before the same committee on Thursday.
On another note, Esper revealed he and the individual service chiefs on Tuesday signed off on a Tenants' Bill of Rights, for the thousands of military families who live in privatized military housing which has been found to be substandard.
Esper said the document contains 15 of 18 previously agreed upon provisions. Among the items that were left out, though, was the one that residents most likely looked forward to the most: withholding rent payments when landlords fail to make timely repairs to units.
Esper said that provision will take more time and study to iron out the legal wording, since contracts are involved.
"What I don't want to do is promise a right I can't deliver," he said.