Rep. Don Bacon (NE-02) expressed significant concerns about the alleged diversion of $1 billion from military housing improvements to border security operations. This issue was discussed during a House Armed Services Committee (HASC) hearing titled “Department of the Army Fiscal Year 2026 Posture.” Rep. Bacon emphasized how this reallocation could negatively affect service members’ living conditions, particularly in light of Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports highlighting substandard facilities.
In his role as Chairman of the HASC Quality of Life Panel, Rep. Bacon collaborated with Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) to enhance service members’ living conditions. Their efforts included securing the largest junior enlisted pay raise in four decades. Last year, their bipartisan panel report documented the decline of military housing facilities and recommended funding through the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for comprehensive barracks renovations and critical infrastructure upgrades to ensure safe and healthy living environments for service members.
Rep. Bacon’s remarks at the hearing were as follows:
“I want to echo some of the concerns that we’ve heard today, the bipartisan concerns on the news reports that the Secretary of Defense has moved over $1 billion out of barracks and dorms for the border. We need a strong border. I get that. But I spent the last year chairing a subcommittee or a temporary subcommittee looking at quality of life, and in the midst of that, the GAO came out and gave our dorms and our barracks a failing grade an F, to include the Army.
“We saw pictures of raw sewage in dorms, rodents, mold, dorms and barracks that had no air conditioner or heat working, and on and on. We spent the year trying to build a plan to help the services fix this. And what we did learn is over a decade, the services were moving money out of their dorms and barracks towards weapon systems. I get that we had finite resources, but we built a 10-year hole for our dorms and barracks.
“Now, if the news reports are true, it’s very troubling. We were trying to help for the quality of life and feel like a decision was made that undermined this whole effort that we spent the last year doing.”
