Andrew P. Hunter: “This has been a thankless year for this committee, because we have been forced to preside over the decline of America's…”

“This has been a thankless year for this committee, because we have been forced to preside over the decline of America's defenses, a very dramatic decline. Anyone who looks at this chart and looks at the various functions, mandatory outlays which have increased from 1991 to fiscal year 2001 by over 38 percent, domestic discretionary outlays, that includes all the social programs that have increased some 15 percent in that same period of time. Finally, look at defense going down 33 percent over that period of time. We understand that we have reversed our priorities and that we no longer consider the security of this Nation to be the number one priority. That mistake we have made in the past, my friends; and, in the past, it has cost American lives.”