Jane Harman: “the support of our women and men in uniform is indeed a serious matter. I take a back seat to no one in my support of a…”

“the support of our women and men in uniform is indeed a serious matter. I take a back seat to no one in my support of a strong defense and intelligence budget for fighting and winning the wars of the 21st century. Throughout my tenure in Congress I have voted to ensure that the women and men defending our Nation have the tools and resources necessary to fight and win the next war, not the last one. I have also voted for the tough choices that led to a balanced budget, beginning with the 1993 budget, then Penny-Kasich, and continuing through the 1997 Balanced Budget Act. I voted to put us on a path that led to the first balanced budget in a generation, and I voted with huge bipartisan majorities of this body to create a lockbox and protect the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. That is why it is so disappointing that we are considering a supplemental appropriations bill that only continues multibillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. Those deficits break our repeated promises to protect Social Security and Medicare and they hurt our fragile economy. Mr. Chairman, we can do better. Sitting down together to hammer out a plan that returns us to a budget surplus is far better than increasing our debt limit by $750 billion. I am profoundly disappointed that this body is unwilling to make the hard choices necessary to balance the budget and protect the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.”