Dan Sullivan Questions Marine Corps General On Potential Harmful 'Knock On' Effects From CR

3 days ago

During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) spoke about harmful effects of funding the military through continuing resolutions.

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Transcript

00:00I'm gonna continue my line of questioning

00:03that I started with General Mahoney to you,

00:06just again on the, we've already touched on it a lot,

00:09but it's okay to, I wanna hear from all the services.

00:13The negative impact on the CR,

00:15the budget flexibility that you would want

00:18or request as part of this year's NDAA,

00:22and then any lessons learned on the good news

00:27that we're all starting to see,

00:28I think across the services on recruiting

00:31and to kind of, you know,

00:36make sure we're learning across services on that,

00:39because I don't think you got enough press,

00:42but if you have an all-volunteer force

00:44and we're hitting a recruiting crisis

00:47of tens of thousands of Americans who we were short,

00:51that's an existential threat to our military.

00:54Fortunately, it looks like we're beyond that,

00:55but we need to embed the lessons learned

00:58from all the services

01:00on how we got out of that danger zone.

01:02So, General, to you on those three questions.

01:06Senator, as far as the CR,

01:09we've canvassed pretty much all the negative things.

01:11I'd just like to hammer down on one.

01:14We talked about anomalies and flexibility

01:16in order to move between appropriations or accounts.

01:21We also need to be mindful of what the top line is.

01:24If there is only so much top line from which to flex

01:27or to move, we're gonna rob from one account

01:32to pay for another.

01:33Examples might be inflation that outpaces the plus-up,

01:37pay raises that were not planned for or budgeted,

01:40but are must-pay bills that money will come from somewhere,

01:43and non-budgeted contingencies

01:46that we pay out of our own primarily O&M accounts

01:49will have to be accounted for somewhere

01:51in the rules of that continuing resolution.

01:54A knock-on effect specific to the Marine Corps is if,

01:58and it's already been touched on by Admiral Kilby,

02:00if ship maintenance or ship building or procurement

02:04or anything that touches amphibious shipping,

02:07it will have a knock-on effect to the Marine Corps

02:10as I spoke about with Senator Hirono earlier.

02:15As far as flexibility goes,

02:18I would reference the Lord Hale study on PPB reform,

02:22and I'll just bring up three things

02:24that come to mind immediately.

02:25I think they have 16 recommendations in there

02:28which are all really good.

02:31Multi-year availability of one-year accounts

02:34so that you are not forced into making bad decisions

02:37at the end of the year and buying things

02:39that you really don't need,

02:40but have a period of availability

02:42to where you can make better executive

02:44and managerial decisions against that appropriation.

02:48Greater transfer authority

02:50so that we can move between appropriations

02:52or move between sub-activity groups

02:54in order to solve a problem early

02:57so that we don't have to come to Congress

02:59for an above-threshold, massive reprogramming

03:03late in the year that may be laid to need

03:05or not solve the problem.

03:07And lastly, and I'll let it go,

03:10is multi-year colorless appropriations

03:14to have flexibility within a portfolio

03:18to strengthen where you're weak

03:20and move money around to make sure

03:23that you can get your objectives attained

03:26within an account.

03:28So multi-year availability,

03:30greater transfer authority,

03:31and multi-year colorless appropriation.

03:33And we did the last one,

03:34and if you think of MRAP and you think of JADO

03:37back in the day, that worked pretty well

03:40to get things done at an accelerated pace.

03:45I'm running on here, but recruiting.

03:48For us, three things.

03:51We have a brand that we will not back off from.

03:54We believe that that brand is attractive.

03:56We believe it is a magnet to a wide demographic

03:59of young Americans who will prove themselves

04:02physically, mentally, and morally qualified.

04:04We will not back off of the standard,

04:07and counter-intuitively,

04:09you maintain a standard at a high level,

04:11that attracts people who want to perform to that standard.

04:15That's a great lesson,

04:16and I think we have to always keep that in mind.

04:22All the services,

04:22no matter what our recruiting challenges are,

04:25it is counter-intuitive, but it works.

04:28So thank you for that.

04:29And lastly, Senator, I already talked about it in detail,

04:32and that is our recruiting force.

04:35A breed apart, who are hand-screened,

04:39selected, incentivized, promoted,

04:42and as I said, when they get back in the fleet,

04:45as you know, they're some of the best staff NCOs

04:48and officers we have,

04:49and they become Sergeant Major of Marine Corps.

04:52And Commandant of the Marine Corps.

04:53Real quick, General Gutlein,

04:55can you just hit on these three questions?

04:59Try to be concise.

05:00I'm going over my time here.

05:01I want to be respectful to my colleagues,

05:03but I do want to get through this issue.

05:05CR, budget flexibilities, and recruiting.

05:11Yes, Chairman, I can go pretty quick.

05:12From a CR, it's a huge challenge.

05:16It's very, very inefficient.

05:18It does impact us, especially,

05:20because we are the smallest force with the smallest budget.

05:23So any churn in our budget is a huge hit to us.

05:27As far as what we would ask for flexibilities,

05:30I agree with the rest of the staff, New Starts.

05:33We are seeing an enormous amount of threats

05:35emerging every single year,

05:37and it is very hard to get after those threats

05:39when you have to wait two to four years

05:40to get the budget to get after those threats.

05:41So anything you can do,

05:42budget flexibility for New Start Authority.

05:45PE consolidation, the ability to move money

05:48between programs would be hugely beneficial.

05:52And then the multi-year procurement,

05:53multi-year execution authority

05:55that General Mahoney talked about.

05:57As far as recruiting and retention,

05:58we've actually got a much easier problem

06:00because we have a much smaller force,

06:01but we are seeing two recruits,

06:04two volunteers for every recruit

06:06that we take into the United States Space Force.

06:08So we're able to be very, very, very selective

06:10for high quality.

06:1115%, almost nearly 15% of our recruits

06:14have some college level of education

06:16to include all the way up to master's and PhDs.

06:19We are recruiting, objectives were met

06:23the last four years in a row,

06:24104% for our enlisted, 101% for our officers.

06:28And we are looking at continuing growth in the future,

06:31and our retention rate has been in excess of 98%.

06:34Wow, great, that's great news.

06:35Great job, General.

Dan Sullivan Questions Marine Corps General On Potential Harmful 'Knock On' Effects From CR

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