Mitch Landrieu: “It is shocking what has come to my attention as a former member of the Armed Services Committee and now as a member of…”

“It is shocking what has come to my attention as a former member of the Armed Services Committee and now as a member of the Appropriations Committee: The lack of equipment, the lack of money in this budget to fund their current operations. This amendment asks to take a billion dollars away from a tax cut that I think could give an extra billion dollars and transfer that room in this budget to add a billion dollars for the Guard and the Reserves. I have a couple of facts that might help people understand why this is so critical and why I really believe we should--and hope we can do this in a bipartisan way--take this positive step. In 1990, there were 2.5 million men and women in the Active Forces of the United States. Today, there are only 1.4 million. The Reserve and Guard make up a larger portion of our fighting force than ever before in the history of the world. There are 860,000 men and women in the Guard and Reserve. They are from the States of my colleagues, as well as my own State. We all know and have people on our staffs, in our families, our neighbors, who signed up basically to be weekend soldiers and weekend warriors, but they have ended up being regular warriors because of the transformation that is occurring. The transformation is that the Active and Reserve units of this Nation are playing a vital role in our protection, not just on the weekends, not just in training but in the real-life battles.”