Floyd Spence: “What is a higher priority than defending the lives of all the people of this great country? We are talking about cutting…”

“What is a higher priority than defending the lives of all the people of this great country? We are talking about cutting today. I would like to remind the gentleman that the defense budget, which includes the intelligence budget, has taken all the cuts in recent years. Spending has gone up for everything else except defense. Let me dwell on that for a minute. I do not think people realize the extent to which we have cut back on our military and our intelligence-gathering agencies, the impact these cuts have had on our national defense. And yes, in a world where the Cold War is over, but in many ways a more dangerous world today than it was during the Cold War. And I will tell my colleagues why. Because people do not realize what we have done to ourselves. We have done to our military and to our intelligence agencies what no foreign power has been able to do. We have been decimating our own defenses. That is unforgivable, Mr. Chairman. In this dangerous world in which we are living, when not tomorrow but tonight, today, at any minute, this whole world could explode for us. It is just that serious.”