Political Quotes

“Madam President, at 5 p.m. we will be voting on an amendment proposed by the Senator from Louisiana, Mr. Vitter. The amendment would require the Secretary of the Army to maintain at least 32 brigade combat teams in the Regular and Reserve components of the Army and 28 brigade combat teams in the Army National Guard. Effectively and deliberately, this amendment would prevent the Army from managing its own force structure, determining how many brigades it needs, how they are disposed in terms of Active, Reserve, and Regular forces. In addition, the way the amendment is paid for, to maintain these additional brigades would be to mandate a 1-percent pay cut for all Federal civilian employees for 2016 and 2017--not a pay freeze, a pay cut. The Army does not support this amendment. They need the flexibility to manage their forces to respond to the threats as they perceive them in the world, to determine where the forces are mechanized, whether they are located in the National Guard or whether they are located in the Regular force. As such, as the Army draws down--and it is on that trajectory because of many issues, some of them budgetary--they would have to totally reexamine their existing force structure and they would indeed have to, I think, sacrifice what they think is the most optimal force for a legislative mandate of an arbitrary number of brigades in place.…”