Willie Hefner: “I do not disagree with anything that the gentleman said, but this is not a new phenomenon for administrations not to…”

“I do not disagree with anything that the gentleman said, but this is not a new phenomenon for administrations not to request as much money as we need. We can go back years and years and years. Many years ago I went out to Fort Hood, TX. I saw some of the troops' wives trying to redo an old cafeteria for a day care center, and we said this is not acceptable. Not any administration since I have been here has put enough focus on quality of life and family housing in the military. It is not real sexy to go out and talk about building barracks and cutting the ribbons for a barracks, as it is for a B-1 bomber or a B-2 bomber, what have you, but it is critical for retention and for making the quality of life for our troops as well as we can. We are so far behind. I remember just a few years ago, not only did we have a cut, we had a pause. We did not do anything in military construction. It was requested that we have a pause in military construction. We did not even keep up with the year before.”