Mike Turner

I'm concerned in seeing this that this must happen across the board in the Federal level, and there's probably hundreds of millions of dollars that could be recaptured if we recaptured vacant position funding.

Thank you. Mr. Fink, I hope you understand the irony of taxpayers who hear you saying that you can only account for 90 percent of the expenditures but they could never stand in front of you and be able to do that.

One thing that struck me in looking at this review of this conference is what I call a budgetary slush fund trick.

The Secretary of the Navy will submit, along with the Secretary of the Air Force, a report to Congress declaring IOC dates for all three variants of the Joint Strike Fighter by June 1, 2013.

But now we have it the threat has been quicker to emerge, North Korea actually threatening the United States, and you have cancelled the fourth phase of the phased adaptive approach, and you are opposing the east coast missile defense…

No, no, no, wait. That is not sufficient. As you know, that was scheduled already under the Bush administration plan to be completed.

Now, Ms. Creedon, it would have been laughable if the Administration had come in 5 years ago with this plan and said it was going to be sufficient to protect the United States, and now, quite frankly, I believe it is just straight-up…

North Korea has moved a missile to a launch pad that our intelligence community says could be an ICBM...

The Administration came and cancelled the third site in Europe, significantly reduced the site in Alaska...

The Administration's missile defense policies are in absolute shambles.

What a third site gives me, whether it is on the east coast or in an alternate location, would be increased battle space.

What are you going to do to give the third site that Admiral Syring says that we need and that Commander Jacoby says that we need for shoot-look-shoot, which has been the doctrine while all these threats have been emerging?

There is an inherent responsibility I think on the Government's side.

If you continue to not fund something you are in essence shutting it down.

I think most of us on the subcommittee support the Army's need to modernize.

Turner, Hon. Michael R., a Representative from Ohio, Chairman, Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces.

Both of them state that at the sequestration numbers, that they would be unable to have confidence of success in one major conflict.

I want to caution against a rush to provide flexibility, because... it would not reduce the amount of cuts.

I voted against this mess because I was afraid we would be right here, right where we are, in a stalemate without any solution.

We had previously always had a national security strategy that required that we be able to be successful in two conflicts, being able to fight two wars.

We hear of, you know, FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] and plane delays, but when we get to the issue of national security, the effects are much more critical.

We could project. We could assume. We could try to imagine, but now that we are in the period of sequestration, you are actually putting pen to paper and able to give us an answer.

Part of the problem that we have in trying to set aside sequestration is that, you know, the Department of Defense was restrained really by the Administration from giving us information about the effects.

I want to congratulate Frank LoBiondo for his leadership both on the Transportation Committee and the Armed Services Committee.

This is one of those. This is one where Congress has stepped in and said we need to make a mark here.