we didn't want it to get mired in a political battle like the Benghazi Committee did

this was such a serious attack on our democracy, and our election process, that it deserved that kind of attention

I also share your concern about fudging on the cap, manipulating things so that you don't bring your Army aviation maintenance crews with you or keep your medevac folks outside of the region.

The public back home really doesn’t care about these places. They really do care about our troops.

I share the concern that when we fund contractors to do the same job we are paying twice essentially for the same work, and also undermining our readiness and Active Duty forces.

I share the chair's concern about the arbitrariness of any troop cap.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but lest we be more critical than we are forward-focused, I would challenge the members of this subcommittee, if they don't like the current FML levels, and as Mr. Russell suggests, it is likely that FML…

So if anyone has any specific suggestions, any particular numbers, because that is what policy boils down to. If you are not for this, what are you for? You can't just be against something.

It is relatively easy to beat up on troop caps, or FMLs, as a flawed device.

Now, there are band-aids here or there but really there is no alternative so it is not a question of if we had only done the Republican plan.

We are purely an investigative committee. And oftentimes that translates into pure political theater.