Joe Cunningham: “I would like to tell Members one of the best committees we have in Congress and works in a very bipartisan way is the…”

“I would like to tell Members one of the best committees we have in Congress and works in a very bipartisan way is the Committee on National Security on authorization and also on the Committee on Appropriations, the Subcommittee on Defense. Republicans and Democrats focus on a general area and they work in the same direction, and that is national security for the United States of America. I would like to make a statement that I would like my colleagues to listen to, and that is that even at a low funding rate, under the balanced budget, defense of this country could survive under the balanced budget figure. Would we be strong? No, but we could survive. Could we do 2 MRCs starting now? I do not believe that is the case. But what the problem is is that the President has us operating at 300 percent above what it was in Vietnam, if we take an already low defense budget and then we pile on top of that $40 billion because the White House has us deployed all over the world. Some of those places I supported, like Iraq, that the President tried to fight. But we have to pay for those things. That mostly comes out of our operation and maintenance funds. We find ships that are not repaired, we find sailors that are not going. Mr. Speaker, we are going to lose, and I want my colleagues to listen to this on both sides, between now and over the next 5 years, even if we invest, we are going to lose a great number of aircraft and pilots in our services.”