Jim Inhofe: “for 59 years in a row, Congress has passed the NDAA--almost always on a bipartisan basis. This year will be the 60th…”

“for 59 years in a row, Congress has passed the NDAA--almost always on a bipartisan basis. This year will be the 60th year in a row. I am proud to say the fiscal year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act continues in that long bipartisan tradition. There is not much around here anymore that passes every single year, let alone with the support of both parties. But we all know what the bill is all about; it is about support of our troops and our national security. I hope we will all keep that in mind, as we discuss the amendments to this bill, to keep them on topic. Last week, I talked a little bit about how we are falling behind China and Russia and how those two countries are now our biggest threats. I think we all know how that happened. It happened in the last 5 years of the Obama administration. During those last 5 years, the President's budget took 25 percent of the military budget away from the military. This has never happened before. Yet that is what happened. What happened at the same time--I don't think a lot of the Members are aware of this, but China and Russia--they are the enemies out there. During the time that our President had defunded the military by 25 percent, Russia actually increased theirs by 34 percent. We went down 25 percent; Russia went up 34 percent. What was China doing during this time? China, while we were going down 25 percent, went up 83 percent. You see what the problem is. They just passed us up in a lot of areas.…”