Michael Waltz: “I just want to take a moment. I have no issue in principle with more Joint Strike Fighters. We need more Joint Strike…”

“I just want to take a moment. I have no issue in principle with more Joint Strike Fighters. We need more Joint Strike Fighters, and we need to continue to modernize our aviation fleet. My issue here is where the money for it comes from. As I was just saying in my previous comments, we have to as a body, we have to as a Congress, and as a military to stop robbing Peter to pay Paul, to stop robbing operations and maintenance to buy new things. Just as a few examples of the many accounts that would be decremented to pay for these F-35s: we have got $50 million from Army operations and maintenance from their maneuver units, $100 million from Navy military manpower and personnel, $56 million from Air Force maintenance, $62 million from base support, and the list continues. Colleagues, we have to build in the operations and maintenance for new things we want to buy rather than taking from the things we have already bought that literally cannot sail or fly.”