The Honorable Robin Hayes
Republican Congressman from North Carolina's 8th District
"The Role of Congress in Providing for the National Defense"
Air & Space Conference and Technology Exposition 2005
September 14, 2005
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Representative Hayes: Good morning Airmen and women. There are seats up front. I know you all are Presbyterians; you like to sit in the back. I promise you there will be good speakers today. You have to start off with somebody. [Laughter] I really appreciate [AFA Executive Director Donald L. Peterson] inviting me here today.
If those of you who are here don't know [Air Force Legislative Liaison staffer] Major Jim Drape, please avail yourself of the opportunity to get to know Jim. Jim, I think the lights are kind of bright. Raise your hand. I want you all to descend on this guy. Stand up. This guy's in combat every day. He's in combat because he's your liaison to the Members of Congress.
I want to talk to you about the tremendous love that I have for the military, the incredible appreciation that I have for what you all do. General Peterson and I were talking about the hurricane relief. As always, the military was on point doing anything and everything that needed to be done. They could have been sooner on the scene, been given the call a little bit sooner, but it's remarkable. Anywhere you look, the service, the commitment, the accomplishments and the response of the military, it's always consistent—good, better or best. And again, in the Katrina situation, you've seen that.
How many pilots do we have in the audience? If you have an emergency in an airplane you're trained to do three things: aviate, navigate, communicate. The guy in the left seat, he's in charge of that.
Hurricane response preparedness is no different. So with that analogy in mind, you can look back and make any assessment you want as to what was done and what happened, and no matter what you come up with, you'll realize the military has been an incredible asset, as always.
Another thing I want you to be sure to remind your friends and neighbors at home about—the Global War on Terror is real. The incredibly vicious, fanatical people that we're up against will be satisfied only with destroying you and I and our way of life. If we treat it as anything less, then we're making a foolish mistake. So again, help your neighbors and friends understand what's at stake here. Hurricane Katrina has somewhat taken the War on Terror off the front page, as I guess should, but it hasn't changed, and again, thank you for what you all do—fighting and winning that War on Terror because we will and we must.
The other thing I want to talk to you about is competition. How many of you are competitors? Exactly. Well, I'm here to tell you if you haven't thought of it that Washington is the most competitive environment in the entire universe; competitive in the fact that there is not one dime of money in the government that didn't come from you. The government doesn't have any money, it has no way of generating money, except to tax and gather it from our citizens. So when you look at the 435 Members of Congress, you look at the 100 men and women in the Senate, all they're doing is using their philosophies and their priorities to spend your money.
One of the most disturbing things that I see as I travel around the country and visit you at your home base or wherever you might be deployed is the number of people who don't know who their House of Representatives Member is. Remember, the House of Representatives, closest to the people, we work for a living.
On the other side of the capital are 100 men and women who get up every morning, look in the mirror and see a future president. [Laughter] While they're pressing their robes and doing whatever else they do, the Congress is moving legislation forward that provides pay raises, better benefits, health care, etc. Again, I'm joking, but at the same time, the truth is there. If you don't know who your Representatives are, if you don't know their attitude about the military, if they don't understand how crucial these men and women are, then you lose in a competitive race.
So I'm asking you to be active. I'm asking you to be involved. I'm asking you to work within the limits of your command and also the law itself to make sure that we the people, not they the Congress or the Senate, are running this country. Folks, a remarkable thing about America is that it is a government and a military run by the people, so if we don't take our responsibilities seriously and make sure that we are finding, supporting, promoting, encouraging and kicking butt when necessary—those folks that hold the incredibly privileged office that I hold—then you're not embracing your responsibility. Also, you're a wonderful, wonderful source of information on what's important, what works. Without your input we can't do our job.
General Peterson mentioned some gobbledygook about the things I do. He talked about TUTSI—terrorism, unconventional threats, whatever else it is. That’s Special Forces, guys. Don't get confused by the political jargon. And everywhere I go, whether it's Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base, the epicenter of the universe, Hurlburt Field, whatever the case may be, I see incredible men and women. Like Larry The Cable Guy, all they know is “get her done.” That's exactly what they do.
It’s kind of a close to poisonous atmosphere up here now, a lot of partisan politics going on, and that makes the competition even stiffer. It gets aggravating, but if you think that's the way things really are, quit reading the newspapers and quit watching CNN because you're going to look at, if you get a chance to meet them and you should, 535 individuals plus the Administration who are committed to the country in their own way, and who are really good people. The relationships that we have with each other on the Hill are far more civil, far more positive, far more cooperative than the press and the media in general would have you believe. And of course you know how inaccurate the media is in reporting the successes in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places.
So be hopeful, be optimistic. And again, encourage those elected Representatives and educate them as to what their commitments, duties and responsibilities ought to be. You've got a bunch of good listeners.
We actually have a prayer breakfast every Thursday morning. We have a group of folks now that get together after votes, whether it's Monday or Tuesday, whenever we start, to pray for the President, to pray for the members of the Cabinet, the House and the Senate. To make sure that we're doing the things that you have put us in office to do.
So again, don't fall for the characterization that the media would have you believe about what folks in office are all about—and within that context, some again may not believe that the military is as important a component of our country, the component that holds the country together. Members of Congress are good people and every time we get them in the field, every time we get them exposed to you and what you do, remarkable transformations occur.
So again, I'm saying be encouraged, be hopeful, work hard to keep us focused on the targets that we need to be hitting.
I know it's a rather large room. That’s why you got a large speaker, so you could see me this time of morning. I would like to stop at this point, after again thanking you and your families for your incredible service, and throw the floor open to questions. And given the choice, please embarrass General Peterson, not me. But I don't think you can.
Thank you very, very much. We appreciate you, we love you, God bless you all.
Q: Do you think Base Relocation and Closure (BRAC) will pass or not through Congress?
Representative Hayes: BRAC will pass.
I was talking to Major Drape about that on the way over here today. It appears that most of the thrashing and gnashing has occurred and what is out there is going to pass in a pretty close form to what it is now. You all may have similar ideas.
Any time this process happens, it raises tremendous controversy. The one thing that I didn't mention—and excuse me, I'll digress for a moment—one of the biggest priorities that I have is more platforms for the military When your planes are older than your pilots, it simply puts undue financial stress to keep a C-130 restricted to half a load flying half the time. That does not make sense.
We need and you all deserve nothing less than the absolute best. I want you to go to war as you do so overmatched against the enemy that you're going to beat him and beat him bad. I want you so overmatched that he makes a decision, “I don't want to take those folks on because they are going to…” Anyway, you get the picture. So I want to make sure that through the process we're spending the money wisely.
USAF Chief of Staff General T. Michael Moseley and I and others have been working to demonstrate how much more costly it is to operate a large number of older, maintenance-ridden airplanes instead of a lesser number of newer airplanes that don't stay on the ground so much. As I have gotten older, and it's obvious that I have, maintenance problems on airplanes and people become very obvious. So we can relate to that. It's going to happen to all you youngsters, too.
It's a gut-wrenching process and it gives you an idea of how Congress, the military and the people work together in a messy way oftentimes, to solve serious problems. BRAC is about making sure that we get you the assets, pay increases, health care, veterans benefits, etc., that you need.
The politics of closing a base, that's very, very difficult. You saw a lot of that going on. Congress works best when each Member represents their district. My district may have a different view on something than your district, but at the end of the day, if everyone represents their own district best, then the system is at its peak of performance.
Q: I've got a question relative to Katrina and its terrible impact on the people in the coastal areas. We're going to end up spending a lot of money trying to recover and help those people get back to a normal life. Do you see this as being a significant challenge for the Congress as far as the funding of this? Of course we know the States are going to be challenged.
Representative Hayes: You've seen some incredibly huge numbers. We're at $60 billion now in special appropriations for the hurricane, and we're going from rescue and transitioning now into the recovery and restoration stage. Obviously, we're going to do what we need to do, but I'm trying to help make sure that your tax dollars are spent wisely.
We were talking about it this morning. I think a good way to do it is to use the contractors and the concept of privatized housing that’s doing a wonderful job for the military, and let them manage the flow, the quality of the product, in the restoration process. We're working on that as we speak.
Q: Do you have any comments on our activities in Iraq, and looking forward from your committee work, when do you guess that we'd be able to see some withdrawal of troops from that area?
Representative Hayes: Iraq, I've been over there three or four times, Afghanistan as well. Seeing you guys on the ground and in the air in theater is an incredible, incredible sight.
There's a very obvious timeline out there. The constitution being adopted—that’s been a little bit rocky, but there is a document. Then, hopefully, you're going to see that document ratified on October 15th. Then, in December, you're going to see another set of elections. I was there, actually, the day the new Prime Minister selected a Sunni Defense Minister—they're committed to the timetable, and a timetable which puts them in charge, connected with the training that we are helping with. The fellow running the academy in Jordan is from western Carolina, by the way. He’s helping to stand the Iraqis up, as the President said, as we stand our troops down. We want you home as quickly and as expeditiously as reasonably possible. That's the way it happens. Sticking to that timeline, whipping the bad guys there, not here, and making sure that we're not in a rush to withdraw, but at the same time helping, demanding that the Iraqis stand their police, military, all of their different components up so that they can provide their own security.
Again, you need to really be patting yourselves on the back. There have been remarkable things happening with the elections. Look where they have been held, including Palestine. Ukranian President Viktor Yushchenko was here. Again, there are some rocky roads there, but what you all have enabled people to do is to experience and to taste the blessing of freedom that we have here. That's the ultimate way to defeat terrorism, hope against devastation and despair.
Q: The House has passed its version of the defense appropriations bill. Congress is going to have a lot on its docket in the month or two, many activities. Do you see us getting a full appropriations bill passed by the end of the fiscal year?
Representative Hayes: We will have an appropriations bill. Your interests are best served when what the House did happens in the Senate. We've changed the number because we've changed so many things, but there are now 12 different appropriations bills—armed services is one. And if you do it that way, you can see what's in there and you can manage the flow and you can complain where necessary, and you can also say that's good spending.
The Senate typically does not do that. At the end of the session, which may be sometime around Thanksgiving, you have this massive hairball called an “omnibus budget bill.” That would be like taking some of you guys who are great mechanics, sending you out to scramble all the wires, the plumbing, the hydraulics on a C-130, and then taking another group of equally capable guys, tie one hand behind their back, blindfold them, tie their legs together, and tell them to go out there and fix it. I think you've got a general sense of my thought on that.
It's going to happen, but it's not going to be separate where we can all take a real close look at it.
Q: I've been around long enough to come to the belief that in the main Congress is relatively responsive to what the citizens want to have happen. Something that I believe overwhelmingly the average citizen wants to have happen is better control of our borders. I don't see much responsiveness from the Administration, from the Senate, from the Congress, to what is obviously a serious problem in our country for our economy, for the enforcement of our laws, for homeland security. There's a lot of big problems on your plate and everybody else's, and I realize that, but I don't see any movement to do what the citizens obviously want done. I'd like your comments on that, sir.
Representative Hayes: You saw the Border Patrol in boats down in New Orleans rescuing people. That’s somewhat in jest, but your comment is absolutely on target. What you're not seeing is every Monday or Tuesday, depending on when the week starts, we have a Whip meeting. How many of you know what the Whip organization does? That’s great. They're the folks responsible for getting the votes together to pass the legislation. We meet every week to talk about what we heard when we were at home over the weekend.
Immigration, gas prices, in addition to of course Katrina and the War on Terror, are the issues that come up most frequently.
On the immigration issue ... Everybody that’s got a brain knows that we have to close our border to illegal aliens for security's sake. We have to know who's here and what they're doing. The Policy Committee has been charged by the Speaker, the Leader and the Whip to come up with legislation that addresses exactly what you said. It's crucial for national security.
So I think you're going to see very soon more activity on that. There are a couple of competing bills, Senator Jon L. Kyl (R-AZ) has one, I think Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has another. You're beginning to see the activity, and our level of sensitivity to the issue is very, very, very high and we're pushing as Members to make sure that leadership moves on it. But it's such a complex issue, and that's one of the reasons it's not moving quite as quickly as all of us would like to see it.
Briefly, on gas prices, we have an opportunity to stand up now and build more refineries in this country which we haven't done in 23 years. We have the opportunity to build nuclear power plants. If the French can make them safe, Lord knows what we can do with them. [Laughter] If there are any French folks here, I didn't mean to offend you, but there is an incredibly effective and safe source of power that gets us away from fossil fuel.
Thanks for your question, and we'll certainly take your suggestion back.
Q: I just want to make sure that everybody understands that you are a pilot. I have seen you land at Pope Air Force Base and I said, “I can't believe he's coming.”
But here's the question ... At Hickam Air Force Base we're in the middle of a partnership between the Guard and Reserve and C-17s. At the unit level, it's a piece of cake. There are a couple of issues, but it's working pretty well. What keeps happening and keeps coming up to us, however, are legislative legal reviews on Title 32/Title 10. Under Title 32, there's a lot of times when the State folks are not allowed to do certain missions because they're in a State mission, but under Title 10, obviously, we can do the federal mission all the time. Who pays for the mechanics, for the pilots, for the various sources of parts and those sorts of things? How does the money flow? Who has Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) authority when a crew is out on a mission and it's a mixed crew? There are a lot of issues. It will work because people want to do the right thing, but there are a lot of administrative details that hold us back. Legal reviews are coming out left and right saying, “you can't do this, you can do this, you can do this on Sundays, but you can't on Wednesdays…” It's pretty confusing.
Do you see any action in Congress to try to streamline or break some of the conflicts that show up there, or are we just going to let everybody try to do what's good for the country? It would just be a little easier if we could get some legislation that really defines how we're going to do this Future Total Force.
Representative Hayes: I'd be less than honest if I didn't tell you that I still don't completely understand the question. It relates to the bureaucracy and personnel matters that are—if you look at some of these bills, you've got all kinds of titles—10, 32, 9, so on and so forth. I have folks that help me with the numbers, but my position on this or any other issue is the military has to have the flexibility to do what they need to do. There are management problems within the military that only the military can solve. You come to us in the Personnel Subcommittee, take it to Armed Services, we'll back you up. If you get your act together and bring it to us for endorsement, we'll make sure that the Whip organization gets the votes to get it passed.
I know what you're talking about and we see it, but again, when you see some of us where you are at your base, put that out there. Again, we’ll bring it back and make sure that we do what we need to do for you.
Q: You opened your presentation this morning expressing support for men and women who stand for right. What are your thoughts about the support or lack of support for the Commandant of the Air Force Academy?
Representative Hayes: I've been disappointed. It's become much more of a political issue. I don't think we stood up tall enough.
Anybody that has an issue deserves to be heard within reason, but after you've been heard, then let's get on with it. The Air Force has done a fabulous job at the Academy educating men and women. If we were running the Air Force, the Congress or whatever, what I might do and what you might do in certain instances could be different, but at the end of the day we are here in freedom because Citizen Soldiers and Airmen like yourselves are not willing to live in a world where evil prevails.
Let’s get all that behind us and support the folks that are doing the job. It's been very frustrating for me.
Q: The subject of the program today is to discuss the role of Congress in providing for the national defense. You started off on the proper note, that it's our money and you're deciding where we're going to spend it. If you need some help to guide you on how to spend the money and support for the military, the first thing we need to do is have the rift between the Air National Guard and the regular Air Force settled on a basis other than what the pre-planning for BRAC was based on, without bringing in the factor of what's happened in New Orleans.
The Air National Guard had C-130s from five States that flew to the Gulf States with aeromed units in their aircraft. Had the BRAC been implemented, all those aircraft, our Delaware airplanes, would be in your district without the trained crews that are ready to fly them, and the aeromed units would have been in New Jersey and the crews would have been sitting in an enclave contemplating their navels like Buddha with nothing else to do.
As long as this rift occurs, we're losing what we used to have when we had the Total Force concept in being; before we went into the blended wings and integrated wings and all this where Guard people lose their identity. We were helping Congress get the money to buy aircraft like C-130s, F-15s and F-16s. Then, when the F/A-22s come along, all of a sudden we're in some kind of a blended wing where we've lost our identity and our connection with the Congress.
Do you have any suggestions as to how, based on the experience we’ve had with the hurricane, that we can re-look at some of those things before we go down a road that perhaps we don't want to go down in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and in the implementation of the Future Total Force?
Representative Hayes: Absolutely. What you're talking about is deployment of forces and assets, and let me quickly say Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve and active duty forces working together have provided a team that's absolutely unbeatable. Again, connect yourself with your individual Members of Congress. Help them understand, whoever they may be, some of the intricacies of personnel, equipment and other issues that allow you to do what you want to do.
I've already taken too much of your time, but thank you again for the wonderful courtesy, your service, and thank you to your families. As I said, there are real speakers coming, and if you all want to lust after my 82nd Airborne coin, if you don't have your coin, you owe me a cup of coffee. Airborne!
Thank you all, God bless you and protect you.
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