Kelly Ayotte: “I wish to thank Senator Sessions. I appreciate his leadership as the ranking member on the Budget Committee and also as…”

“I wish to thank Senator Sessions. I appreciate his leadership as the ranking member on the Budget Committee and also as a senior member of the Armed Services Committee. This is so troubling, where we are right now with respect to our Department of Defense, our military--the most important constitutional function we have as a government to make sure the American people are safe. Essentially, where we are is the Budget Control Act, as described, initially has cut $487 billion from our military over the next 10 years. But on top of that, there are across-the-board cuts coming in January. I think the No. 1 lesson we learned from the Budget Control Act is when we kick the can down the road and we don't make the decisions right away or when we delegate it to some other committee to make the decisions, when we don't do a budget in 3 years, here is where we are. So we owe it to the American people to make the decisions that need to be made now. It is irresponsible to put our Department of Defense and our military--our men and women who have fought so bravely for this country--at risk because somehow there are Members who think it is important to play roulette and to play chicken with our national security. This isn't just from the Senator from New Hampshire. Just listen to our own Secretary of Defense. He describes what is coming with these across-the-board cuts in January as: Devastating. Catastrophic.…”