Wilson Opening Statement for Hearing on the Administration’s Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Request for Military Personnel

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 21, 2009

Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC), Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel, released the following prepared remarks today for the subcommittee’s hearing to receive an overview of the Administration’s budget request for military personnel in Fiscal Year 2010.

“Thank you, Chairwoman Davis. In many respects, the military personnel systems today reflect a degree of success that would have been questionable three to five years ago. In large part, that success is due to the efforts of the witnesses who will testify today.

“I want to particularly single out Lieutenant General Michael D. Rochelle, the Army G-1, and Lieutenant General Ronald S. Coleman, the Marine Corps’ Deputy Commandant for Manpower and Reserve Affairs. This likely will be their last appearance before this subcommittee. Each will complete more than 30 years of exceptional service before retiring, and both men are directly responsible for successfully directing the personnel programs of their respective services through an extraordinarily difficult period. I personally want to thank you for your service to this nation and wish you both well in your future endeavors.

“With regard to the Fiscal Year 2010 military personnel budget request I have three areas of concern.

“The first is the $800 million reduction in the services’ recruiting and retention budgets. While I know that the downturn in the economy has made recruiting and retention somewhat easier, the experience of this subcommittee is that reductions in recruiting and retention funding inevitably prove to be too deep. So I am interested in hearing the personal assessment of each of the service personnel chiefs as to where ‘risk’ exists in the proposed cuts to recruiting and retention resources.

“My second concern focuses on the numbers of non-deployable personnel in the Army, Army National Guard and Army Reserve. Clearly, the fact that there are at least 27,000 non-deployable personnel in the active Army and at least another 21,000 non-deployables in the Army Guard and Army Reserve must have a range of effects in those components. I would like to hear more about those impacts and how the Army believes they might be mitigated.

“The third area of concern relates to recent testimony by the service chiefs, especially those of the Marine Corps and Army, that dwell time will not significantly increase in the foreseeable future. I would like to understand why, with increased end strength, there will not be a significant change in the dwell time for the active and reserve components.”

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