Richard B. Nugent: “I want to thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings). I agree with a lot of what he said. We talk about Pakistan…”

“I want to thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings). I agree with a lot of what he said. We talk about Pakistan, and I just came from there. We talk about the threat that the Taliban that are hiding in Pakistan pose to our troops in Afghanistan, and we talk about that every day. We talk about the inaction of the Pakistani military and the ISI in particularly rooting out those that are killing more U.S. troops in Afghanistan than anything else. I would like to see more direct involvement as relates to Pakistan and their military on accountability issues that Mr. Hastings brought up, about the ability for us to make sure that if they're going to be allies in this fight against terrorism and particularly against the Taliban, that they truly are. But in regards to this bill, the underlying legislation, this is $9 billion less than what the President of the United States requested for military DOD allocations this year, for 2012, $9 billion less than the President's request. And some of it is to restock our National Guard and Reserve units that have been decimated over the years in regards to fighting wars in two different countries. It's about giving our troops a pay raise. It's about taking care of their medical needs and research in regards to providing medical care for those that are in the military. And guess what? That also then bleeds out into the civilian world in regards to those applications that are developed in the military.…”