Martha Roby: “Look, friends and colleagues, we have heard from several Members about the devastating impacts that any delay in ARI…”

“Look, friends and colleagues, we have heard from several Members about the devastating impacts that any delay in ARI would have on our Army. But let's take time to revisit why we are here in the first place. We are here because this Congress put the Army in the position to have to make these difficult decisions in the first place. We are here because of a thing called sequestration. And if there has ever been a time for a stronger argument to revisit this so that we can properly fund all of our military across all branches so that they are not put in this box where the Army has to make these tough decisions, now is the time. We have got to properly fund the United States military. So here we have a letter from a highly respected Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army to Congress saying, If you do this, if you delay these helicopter transfers, you will create a domino affect that will result in the United States of America sending our soldiers to Afghanistan and Iraq who are neither fully trained or in fully equipped. We have to do better. We have to do better. And this is the case. Again, I oppose this amendment, and I call on my colleagues to revisit fully funding our military and repealing the sequester.”