Dan Coats: “very briefly, in the time we have, I don't enjoy opposing matters offered by my friend from Oklahoma, but I have a…”

“very briefly, in the time we have, I don't enjoy opposing matters offered by my friend from Oklahoma, but I have a fundamental disagreement with him on this particular issue. We do four basic things in defense: We pay for people and their quality of life; we research, develop, and purchase modern weapons and give them the very best capabilities; we support the readiness of our forces; and we pay for infrastructure--the bases and all the infrastructure for support. We know four things: We know that our military people are underpaid and that their quality of life is suffering; we know they live in inadequate housing; we know we have a $10 to $15-billion-a-year shortfall in research, development, and modernization; we know that we have strains in growing, cracks and fissures in our readiness; and we know that we have too much infrastructure. The Department of Defense says we cut personnel and everything else by 40 percent, infrastructure by 20 percent. What this amendment does is send a message. It sends a message that we will subordinate the interests of caring for our people, of supporting new modernization of weapons, of making sure of our readiness, in order that we keep the infrastructure that we have, in order that we protect civilian jobs and bases that the Department of Defense does not want and does not need. It is exactly the wrong message to send to our service people, to send to our national defense. It jeopardizes our national security.”