Jon Tester

The bottom line is if anybody is not pulling their weight, it puts everything at risk.

I can't imagine that you find this acceptable at all.

The China threat requires our military to modernize with an emphasis on nimble and distributed operations.

Let's be clear, despite Russia's ongoing war with Ukraine, China remains the pacing threat, and that pace is a run, if not a full on sprint.

I would add that no matter the desired outcome, holding people accountable, whether it be Government or civilian, for delays in ship construction or cost growth in our modernization programs has to be a part of the modernization strategy.

To be frank, despite record high investments, the Navy's planned future force structure is not clear.

I think the problem is, we don't have inventory. We just don't have inventory.

So sustainment is important, but growth is also important.

If we are going to expect, or demand, that the Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine, Coast Guard, the works, meets our end strength, how is it even possible without housing?

Water literally is life, you can live without a lot of things, you can't live without clean water.

Canada is a huge friend of ours, a great trading partner, and the fact is that there is water that flows from United States North, we shouldn't be polluting them, and they shouldn't be polluting us.

If we have affordable battery technology, that fixes the problem.

It's not acceptable and it may be a long ways away from this country, but we cannot...allow that to continue

This budget proposes eliminating a 102 aircraft. It's going to save $1.2 billion in 2023.

Sir, the Space Force investments are directly in line with the National Defense Strategy and directly in line with being able to successfully detect and track the threat that you talked about and that's the foundation of our budget request.

Yes, sir. In the budget request we fund to IOC, we'll begin launching satellites the end of 2024-early 2025 and reach IOC in 2027.

China's continued military modernization, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, space as a contested domain, as well as numerous threats I cannot talk about here, remind us every day that we have no time to waste.

We consider the fiscal year 2023 budget request with great sense of urgency as we face China's rapidly increasing technological capabilities and warfighting capacity.

I want to express my appreciation for all three of you being here today.

When Russia entered Ukraine in an unprovoked attack, this is exactly the kind of aggression we have to deter

As a result, cost savings don't materialize and we risk creating capability gaps.

China is very actively fielding the systems that it thinks will defeat the United States' ability to project power and we have to respond to that.

China remains a pacing threat and continues to be the focus as we modernize our military forces.

I have long supported NATO as a stabilizing force in Europe, and if President Putin believed he would shake the alliance with his further assault on Ukraine, he sorely miscalculated.

I want to thank you for being here. Thank you for your knowledge on this budget, and I appreciate the opportunity.