Mike Levin: “the Air Force budget continues to buy F-16's because the service feels that they need to buy more F-16's to prevent a…”

“the Air Force budget continues to buy F-16's because the service feels that they need to buy more F-16's to prevent a force structure reduction sometime around the turn of the century. But I do not see that anyone could really argue that having a couple more modern F-16's in a force structure of more than 1,200 aircraft is nearly as important as taking an immediate step to reduce our vulnerability to terrorist activities. What this amendment would do would be to shift $48 million from aircraft that we do not need now, that was in neither the Air Force budget request nor in its wish list, and instead of spending that $48 million on the additional two F-16's not requested, would fund higher priority antiterrorist activities. We are familiar with a recent report of the Joint Chiefs that show that antiterrorism funding in this budget reflects a reduction over the past several fiscal years. We have heard that referred to today in an amendment that was offered by Senator McCain and myself. These antiterrorist efforts have fallen short by some $56 million over this period. There were mitigating circumstances that may have led the Defense Department to make these reductions, such as changes in the number of bases, completion of construction projects, or other changes. But, surely, this recent attack in Saudi Arabia makes it abundantly clear that there is much more that we should be doing in our effort to address the terrorism problem.”