John McCain

We are here fighting as hard as we can to repeal sequestration, and that is a bipartisan effort.

Senator McCain and I have spearheaded a bill to provide better mental health care to our veterans, the Clay Hunt bill.

I most strongly urge that we avoid sequestration.

If defense budgets continue to be capped at sequestration levels, we will likely not be able to meet the national defense strategy without an unacceptable level of risk.

The only other comment I would like for you to answer because I would like all my colleagues to be able to have time to answer questions is the old line about those of us that ignore the lessons of history.

Sequestration will cause great harm to the security of our Nation.

We will not have sufficient force structure to meet the fundamental requirement to simultaneously Defeat an adversary, Deny a second adversary, and Defend the Homeland.

If we do not address the problem of sequestration, we will severely limit the range of available military options to address these threats and protect our national interests.

The cost of losing that trust is incalculable.

Thanks to the members of this committee for your persistent support of our military. We need your continued help to be ready for today's operations . . . and still able to win in 2025.

The impacts on readiness and modernization outlined above would result in an Air Force that, at sequestered levels of funding, cannot successfully execute all Defense Strategic Guidance requirements.

Sequestration is the single greatest barrier to the effectiveness of our Armed Forces--to its Training, Readiness, and Modernization.

Compromise and difficult choices will be required to provide sequestration relief for DOD and for other critical national priorities.

If we do not have the resources to train and equip the force, our soldiers, our young men and women, are the ones who will pay the price, potentially with their lives.

I have come to one conclusion already and that is, in the whole process, it requires your input in a much more meaningful fashion.

That is our second top priority item I think for this committee in the coming session.

It is my intention--and I am happy to tell you that this committee, as you know, has a long tradition of bipartisan behavior--that we will be working together to try to address these issues that cry out for reform.

Sequestration is doing not irreparable but would you say most serious harm to our ability to address the challenges

I worry even more about China in terms of a great power competitor.

We need to have a strong military. We need to have a strong economy, and we need a strength of purpose in our country.

The outcome, which must be a free Ukraine.

A close partnership between the executive and legislative branches of government is the only way to protect our interests and sustain our leadership in this dangerous world.

We should not be shy about promoting these values.

We are the only nation with not just the capacity and will to lead, but also the ideals to do so.

We need a strategy that matches military means to the President's stated goal of degrading and destroying the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS].