Mike Levin: “I commend my friend from Arizona for this amendment. This is a subject which has been discussed at some length in the…”

“I commend my friend from Arizona for this amendment. This is a subject which has been discussed at some length in the Armed Services Committee. He has consistently fought for and has been on the side of trying to identify what the priorities of the Guard and Reserve are so that we could at least consider those priorities when it comes time to identifying the items in the authorization bill. As a matter of fact, he was very forthright in his support of that position on the authorization bill. We did adopt an amendment which I offered, I believe, on the authorization bill a few weeks ago. The question I would like to ask of the Senator from Arizona is this: Is the approach in this amendment either similar to or, at a minimum, consistent with the requirement that we added to the authorization bill on the floor, that the Guard and the Reserve components identify, prior to submission of the budget, what their priorities are so that they could be considered by the Congress when the time comes, if we add money to identify what those items are?”