Jim Inhofe: “Of course, the Senator from Georgia being the ranking member of the Personnel Subcommittee, and Senator Kempthorne…”

“Of course, the Senator from Georgia being the ranking member of the Personnel Subcommittee, and Senator Kempthorne, being the chairman, as I go around and make the base visits, it is very distressing. You mentioned flight pay. We are losing our quality pilots to the private sector because there is a great demand out there. How can we compete, when these guys are willing to do it? They want to fly the F-16's, the F-14's and the F-18's, and the equipment we have, the heavy equipment, the B-1's and B-2's, and so forth, but they also have families and they have children and we have to provide them with the pay that is somewhat competitive. We are way below that. However, you are able to get in some provisions that will, I think, retain some of these pilots. Right now we are in the middle of an incredible housing shortage and we have troops on food stamps, we have housing that they would not let prisoners live in. We have a lot of improvements here due to your hard work and that of Senator Kempthorne. To jeopardize all of that work just because of one small provision--I suggest there are some things I do not like in this bill. If I do not like them I will offer an amendment to take it out. That is the process. I just hope we can follow that process.”