Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I want to reiterate the importance of making sure that we are funding defense at the President's request. The FY 2017 request, I think, is minimally adequate, but it is not just me. The administration's own Secretary of the Army Murphy stated that this budget request is minimally adequate and that we are taking a high risk as an Army and as a Nation when the Army is funded at this level. So there is still risk there with this level of funding. As the chairman pointed out, we live in a more dangerous world today, but we see our Marine Corps and Air Force having to go to aircraft that are museum exhibits to cannibalize parts to bring them in to have a minimally operational cadre of aircraft. We see this, too, when we talk about only 9 of the 20 B-1 bombers are available today because they are lacking parts and when we have 30 percent or less of our Marine Corps helicopters available because they are lacking parts. We see that, in a squadron of 14 jets, only 3 in the Marine Corps are available because they are lacking parts. It is irresponsible not to provide to the brave men and women that serve this Nation the things that they need. We are asking them to go into harm's way. We are asking them to do tremendously difficult jobs. We are asking them to maintain safety. Yet we are not providing them the resources necessary.…”