Richard Shelby: “I am talking to you up here now also as an appropriator, I guess, although we are not in the Appropriations Committee.”

As Senator Shelby at our Senate testimony hearing last March pointed out to us, we must maintain what we have before we can build new, and I think he hits the mark head-on.

I remain concerned that the Air Force budget request is insufficient considering the needed modernization across the inventory with a rapidly evolving threat.

Because the administration has refused to fund the construction of a comprehensive barrier along the border, it has been compelled to send the National Guard to deal with the consequences.

Regrettably, this was all predictable and avoidable.