Angus King

You guys have essentially rewritten the Constitution here today.

What I am saying is we may need new authority, but if you expand this to the extent that you have, it is meaningless.

My concern is about open-ended authority to the executive to wage war and send our people into harm's way.

If the nature of al Qaeda core on September 11, 2001, does emerge, then by all means return to Congress and request a narrowly tailored authorization to use force to address that.

I want to know how to, as I said, breathe life into it.

I do not disagree that we need to fight terrorism, but we need to do it in a constitutionally sound way.

I have only been here 5 months, but this is the most astounding and the most astoundingly disturbing hearing that I have been to since I have been here.

I believe that fighting terrorism is an absolute paramount responsibility of this Government and this President or any President.

We need to hear about the effects particularly of the sequestration because it will not do to have a crisis that we are unable to respond to adequately

The Benghazi situation taught us that timeliness of response is important.

I have a feeling now that we are having a somewhat similar experience of it will never happen again.

It strikes me that the overall impression from this hearing is that we are really in a situation, particularly with sequestration, where readiness and modernization are in competition with each other.

What is going on in this institution with regard to the fiscal situation is inexcusable, and to me it is a fundamental issue of competence.

I was frankly surprised that the 306-ship goal would not be reached for 24 years.

So this is another area where we have to work together.

But that 306 number in 24 years is based upon no sequestration.

But is it safe to say that if sequestration continues into the indefinite foreseeable future, we will have a substantial impact on shipbuilding?

It seems to me the problem with sanctions against countries that are essentially autocratic is that the sanctions affect everybody in the street and they don't necessarily affect the decisionmaker.

Does political pressure in a country like Iran mean anything?

The sequester itself is the most serious security risk this country faces right now?

We won't know what we've missed until something blows up.

I would like to see what somebody is given when they sign up.

The cuts that are coming, unless we can unwind that in some way, are drastic.

You are essentially saying this is a contract that we are making with somebody when they sign up.

There is a lot of discussion around here about these budget cuts. They are real.