If forced to continue along this path, we will risk a force that is tiered in its capabilities.

It seems to me--and you are potentially facing--that this is a very important issue, to ensure that no one can interfere with that at this point.

We need Congress to intervene and provide us the flexibility to determine where those reductions are made rather than the mandatory across the board cuts that the law requires.

As I understand it, at this point, nobody within GM has been fired as a result of the issue that comes before us today on the ignition switch and obviously this long pattern of having information and not providing disclosure and recall to…

I find it shocking that something like that... wouldn't have gone directly up through the leadership of GM.

I think that we should get to the bottom of that, in terms of deception, in terms of the potential safety issues.

I would think it would be important for this committee, actually, to hear directly from Mr. Valukas on the investigation itself.

The Marine Corps has forgone some investments to maintain near-term readiness.

I understand that the Navy has revised its guidelines for accounting for the size of the Navy's battle force.

As we continue to face the possibility of further budget reductions under sequestration, we may be forced into adopting some variation of a less ready, temporarily tiered status within the next few years in order to make critical…

I have no doubt, as I have said, about Mr. Valukas's qualifications.

You described the situation with the duplicate parts, the duplicate ignition switches. One had the defect, one didn't; however, the same part number was kept.