William M. ``Mac'' Thornberry: “I appreciate the gentleman yielding. As the current occupant of the chair will remember, on February 6, 2018, just last…”

“I appreciate the gentleman yielding. As the current occupant of the chair will remember, on February 6, 2018, just last year, Secretary of Defense Mattis testified: ``Let me be clear, as hard as the last 16 years of war have been, no enemy in the field has done more harm to the readiness of the United States military than the combined impact of the Budget Control Act's defense spending caps, worsened by operating in 10 of the last 11 years under continuing resolutions of varied and unpredictable duration.'' Mr. Speaker, this bill before us now fixes, finally, the problems that Secretary Mattis pointed to in his testimony last year, for, as members will recall, starting in 2010, with the responsibility of both Republicans and Democrats, both the White House and Congress, defense spending went down, in real terms, about 20 percent. And we are not just talking numbers. We are talking increased aircraft accidents. We are talking tragic accidents at sea where sailors were killed. We are talking in all the services, a number of training accidents and malfunctions that had real consequences to the human beings who volunteer to protect our country. Now, the last 2 years--again, on a bipartisan basis--we have begun to turn that around. We have begun to improve our readiness, begun to improve training, begun, as the gentleman from California was talking about, to narrow some of the gaps that have developed on key technologies with other adversaries.…”