Norman D. Dicks: “there are some areas in base closure where we can do some other cuts. I would like to take that money, frankly, and put…”

“there are some areas in base closure where we can do some other cuts. I would like to take that money, frankly, and put it into modernization where the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and all the service chiefs have written a letter to the Secretary of Defense saying we should be, instead of being at $43 billion a year, be at $60 billion. We are not there. We went through this before, after the Vietnam War, when we created a hollow force, and then it opened the door for Mr. Reagan to come in and say we have to vastly increase defense spending because we did not handle this properly. We did not develop an adequate force. Mr. Chairman, I am not going to ask for any additional time because I know my colleagues will not appreciate it.”