The subcommittee will come to order. This afternoon the East Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee will examine U.S. policy toward Burma.

I would say that we have zero tolerance for that. We are going to continue our audits and reviews to ensure, with additional training of scheduling practices, that this is not occurring.

Dividing budget cuts equally between nondefense and defense expenses as in last year's sequester will neither resolve our finances nor assure our security.

Is the continued drift toward a smaller and smaller Navy troubling? Yes, it is.

the Nation's debt is the greatest threat to our security.

this was likely a modern era turning point for the fleet.

I would much prefer to focus on getting us out of Iraq.

This is a particular problem in the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

We worked with them for months and they could not tell us where $32 billion had been spent in a specific way.

I am here to basically express the strongest support possible for the movement of this legislation.

I would say it has been one of the great pleasures of being in the Senate, to have been able to get this legislation into place.