Jim Inhofe: “in the floor speech that I gave last week on the ``Common Sense for Common Defense,'' I highlighted the fact that our…”

“in the floor speech that I gave last week on the ``Common Sense for Common Defense,'' I highlighted the fact that our competitors have increased their own military spending and focused on modernization and how we are going to have to do the same. When I talk about competitors, I am talking about China and Russia. I think this President did a good job of outlining our national defense system and putting it into different categories, because when you talk about China and Russia--not many people are aware of this--China and Russia have increased all during the years that we have decreased. They have actually caught up, and, in some cases, have actually passed us. Our men and women in uniform are outstanding representations of what is right in America. Their drive and determination is the reason the United States of America has the honor of being the leader of the free world. That honor, however, is the product of hard work, not birthright. We earned it. But over the last 10 years, our military supremacy has slowly degraded. General Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has acknowledged that our qualitative and quantitative advantage has eroded. Toward the end of the Obama administration, with many of our systems, like our brigade combat teams, only 35 percent of them could be deployed because of what happened to the defense budget and our maintenance capabilities. The same thing happened to our Army aviation brigades.…”