Mike Garcia

We passed a piece of legislation back in December of 2022, that was actually signed into law by the President in January of 2023 on the Active-Duty side called the Military Spouse Licensing Relief Act.

I think getting that dual income, allowing the spouse to be able to stay in the workforce, but then the collateral benefit of also having that community...

It warms my cockles to hear an Army four star say that he asked for six F-35s and additional F-15EXs.

I was encouraged that the President signed my military licensing, Spouse Licensing Relief Act, into law, and I think that helps.

In California last week, and we brought this up in an earlier hearing with SECNAV as well, and we have had discussions with SecDef about it as well.

I would encourage you to look at my RAISE Act, which takes the starting salary of an E1 from $22,000 and brings it up to $31,000.

I would like to expand that and enable that on the authorizing side with HASC to get that to apply to the Reserve side.

If you ask an 18-year-old if he wants to go work at In-N-Out for $22 an hour or join the Army for the equivalent of $12 an hour you are going to get 95 percent of them going to In-N-Out.

Last year, we missed our recruitment numbers, retention numbers by a net 41,000 personnel, recruits across all the services.

An E-1 right now even with the 5 percent raise last year and the 4.5 percent increase in this President's budget request is still $22,000, $23,000 a year.

I have been very adamant that I don't know that we have a capability gap relative to China.

The other request I have is that you continue to remind the young marines and sailors that the military spouse licensing relief law is now law of the land.

I see our biggest near-term tactical threat is our open southern border, and obviously the biggest strategic threat, which I treat as an existential threat to our country, being China, as well as our debt, but that is not your fault.

We passed, out of HAC-D, a bill that took the starting salary for an E-1 from $22,000 to $31,000, which is the equivalent of $15 per hour.

You all know my number one priority is our troops, especially our junior enlisted, E-1 through E-6. They are the most precious, they are the most potent, and they are the most powerful weapon system that we have.

It is a game changer, absolutely.

I personally have no doubt that we would win a war against China. I think it would be protracted, very bloody, extended, probably not popular after time.

So now you have got an Active-Duty family going down to a single income for 2 to 3 years wherever they are based.

I am very concerned about the lack of, frankly, assets within the Reserve components, especially on the Air National Guard side...

I want us to be secure. And that is what our voters want, that is what our constituents want.

As someone who drives an electric vehicle, I know--I knew there were a lot of unknowns, but seeing that video, I certainly will be parking in the driveway from here on out.

I think we need to have electric storage facilities.

the sort of legislative bullying that they may experience in their states or they may have heard in these halls is not where the majority of the people in this country are.

We would definitely want the state approving agencies to have that same authority and oversight to make sure that we have quality programs.

I urge--I encourage you to look at this again and figure out how we can actually support protecting the environment and national security because they are not mutually exclusive in this case.