Political Quotes

“Ronald Reagan in 1985 had a very major defense bill. That was the height of the buildup, the rebuilding of America's Armed Forces. That bill in today's dollars was $452 billion. Today's bill is a little over $340 billion. That means that even with the increases that we have placed in this bill so far, we are still $100 billion under Ronald Reagan's defense bill of 1985, when we had a gross national product which was much smaller. So it is important for Americans, both in uniform and out of uniform, to understand that today we are asking our people to do more with less. We do not have the force structure that we had during Desert Storm. We had the fruits of the Reagan-Bush defense buildup used in Desert Storm. In those days, we had 18 Army divisions. We have cut those 18 Army divisions down to 10. We had about 546 Navy ships. We have cut that down to 316. We are going down further. We had 24 fighter air wings. We have cut that down to 13. Beyond that, we have piled up some shortages in munitions, equipment, spare parts, and other vital areas.”