Steve Buyer: “I would share with my colleagues that I believe we have a very fair rule and also a very strong bipartisan bill that is…”

“I would share with my colleagues that I believe we have a very fair rule and also a very strong bipartisan bill that is coming to the House floor that will serve the national security needs of those men and women who serve in our armed forces. I want to compliment the Committee on Appropriations. I think the chairman and the ranking member did a very good job in working with the authorizing committee. I have not seen this type of cooperation in the 8 years I have served here in Congress. Sometimes we get conflict between the authorizing and the appropriating committees, but in this case I extend great compliments on their work. Let me first speak about the quality of life. Despite 5 years of sustained efforts to improve the quality of living for U.S. military personnel and their families, service members continue to voice their displeasure with the military life by leaving the force, which is very bothersome to many of us. As a result, each of the services has experienced significant recruiting and retention problems, threatening the strength and readiness of the all-volunteer force.”