Joel Hefley: “we are beginning to see evidence of military shortages everywhere. At the same time, our military is dangerously…”

“we are beginning to see evidence of military shortages everywhere. At the same time, our military is dangerously overstretched. We have fewer and fewer resources and more and more missions, many of them of dubious value and wisdom. Less than a month into a small operation, the President is already calling up 30,000 reservists. The U.S.S. Enterprise went to sea short of 400 personnel. Today there are 265,000 American troops in 135 countries. Our troops are not being taken care of properly. It is tragic that it has taken the war in Kosovo to expose the total mismatch between resources and missions in the U.S. military: world policeman, global social worker, all the while cutting back dramatically and drastically on weapons procurement, training, and personnel. This administration has not given our troops the priority they deserve. For 7 straight years, the President has sent Congress a defense budget that falls short of its needs. If Congress had not added to this budget each year since 1995, we would be in even worse shape. Kosovo illustrates the problem, but we in Congress have the power to correct it.”