John Mica: “I serve as chairman of the Subcommittee on Civil Service of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, and I know…”

“I serve as chairman of the Subcommittee on Civil Service of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, and I know where the cuts in our work force are taking place. We have heard of 273,000 employees downsized; 80 percent of the cuts in this administration have come out of the civilian defense force. We just heard the last speaker say, What is the threat? The threat is we have had the largest arms sale in the history of the world, and we have missiles, and we have subs, and we have all kinds of weapons. Pick up the newspaper today and we see the potential of the threat. And our No. 1 responsibility under the Constitution is what? To provide for the defense of this country. It does not say to get into all these programs. It is no problem for us to come here or this administration to come here and spend $2 billion on Haiti; $2 billion on Somalia; another billion in Rwanda; Bosnia, $5 to $6 billion. And then we talk about a missile defense of $5 billion. We are really standing still. We are losing ground. Mr. Chairman, two-thirds of our money to three-quarters of it is on salaries and retirement benefits. We are now paying more on interest on the national debt than we are in real dollars for our national security, our No. 1 responsibility under the Constitution. Mr. Chairman, we cannot afford to err. We cannot afford as a Congress to make a mistake. That is the threat.”