Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2024

Floor Speech

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Ms. GREENE of Georgia. Madam Chair, today I will introduce an amendment that uses the Holman rule to slash the Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin's salary to no more than $1, and $1 is too much money.

Let's talk about the job description of the Secretary of Defense. That role oversees the Defense Department and acts as the principal defense policymaker and adviser to the President of the United States.

The Department of Defense's mission statement states: ``With our military tracing its roots back to pre-Revolutionary times, the Department has grown and evolved with our Nation. Our mission is to provide the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our Nation's security.''

Secretary Austin has not fulfilled his job duties. As matter of fact, he is destroying our military.

During Secretary Austin's tenure, military recruitment has reached crisis levels of low recruitment. The numbers show that the Army expects to fall 15,000 recruits short of its annual recruiting goal this year. The Navy is expecting to be short 10,000 recruits. The Air Force is down another 3,000.

This cannot stand, especially with our government funding and fueling a war in Ukraine that is leading us undoubtedly to world war III.

Secretary Lloyd Austin failed America with his withdrawal from Afghanistan, making American forces leave in retreat and feeling like a failure.

Secretary Austin also forced more than 8,000 troops to be kicked out of the military for refusing the COVID vaccine.

My amendment is a strong amendment, and many Americans agree. We do not want the United States military led by failure causing us to be weak. We need to pass my amendment.

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Ms. GREENE of Georgia. Madam Chair, I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Van Orden), who has also proudly served in the United States military.

Mr. VAN ORDEN. Madam Chair, I have multiple combat tours as a Navy SEAL, including two to Afghanistan, and that is why I rise today in support of the amendment to use the Holman rule to reduce Secretary Austin's salary to $1.

To paraphrase a famous British officer's evaluation: Secretary Austin consistently sets low standards and then fails to meet them.

Secretary Austin remains in charge of the Pentagon, despite the fact that he has been responsible for the greatest degradation of the United States military since the Vietnam war and the highest Active Duty and veteran suicide rate in our history.

He is directly responsible for abandoning thousands of American citizen and our allies to terrorists in Afghanistan and the subsequent deaths of 13 of our brave men and women in uniform during that fiasco.

I support applying the Holman rule to reduce his salary to $1 simply because we cannot reduce it to zero.

Secretary Austin could save further controversy and redeem his honor by resigning immediately and publicly apologizing to all of the Gold Star families he is directly responsible for creating at the bombing of Abbey Gate.

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Ms. GREENE of Georgia. Madam Chair, there is no excuse. You can't blame President Trump for the failure in Afghanistan. That failure lies on Secretary Lloyd Austin, Joe Biden, the President of the United States, and his administration.

President Trump would have never led our troops to failure in Afghanistan. He would have never abandoned $7 billion worth of military equipment. President Trump would have never left the Afghan people in complete ruin to be controlled by a terrorist government, the Taliban.

That is a complete excuse. Democrats need to stop blaming President Trump and his administration for Joe Biden's failures.

I urge the House to adopt my amendment, Madam Chair, to take Secretary Lloyd Austin's salary using the Holman rule, which is a rule that allows us to fire failures that are serving our government and serving our country.

Lloyd Austin is not serving the United States military.

Lloyd Austin is leading the United States into failure.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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