Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I have had the honor of working on this important legislation for months and am proud of the final bipartisan bill we produced to strengthen our national security. One of the main reasons I came to Congress was to restore America's military strength and improve the quality of life for our servicemen and -women. This bill takes several critical steps to help us achieve that goal. In total, this year's NDAA authorizes $886 billion in national defense discretionary programs with the focus on improving our readiness and recruitment, supporting our servicemembers and their families, strengthening partnerships with our allies, increasing the lethality of our Joint Force, equipping our warfighters to successfully complete their mission, and ensuring vigorous oversight of taxpayer dollars at the Pentagon. I wanted to speak specifically to a few components of the NDAA, why it is a great bill, why I am excited to support it and encourage my colleagues to do the same. First of all, a large component of the NDAA is about supporting our servicemembers and their families. It secures the largest pay raise in 20 years for our servicemembers at 5.2 percent. We continue to see our servicemembers struggling with the economy. They are unable to afford things, not just gas and groceries, but things like buying a new home, buying a new car.…”