Adam Smith: “Meanwhile, back to a world that actually exists. Talking about Ms. Jayapal's amendment, I think it is incredibly…”

“Meanwhile, back to a world that actually exists. Talking about Ms. Jayapal's amendment, I think it is incredibly important because there is a problem going forward from the military that we have seen on many issues. You take it piece by piece--you look at the nuclear enterprise; you look at the Air Force; you look at how many ships we want; you look at counterterrorism--and you add up all the money over the course of the next 20 to 25 years, and we don't get there. And this is the worst thing that we can do to our troops is to set up a group of missions that we don't have the funds to prepare them for. That is the largest problem that I see. We here in Congress decide that they ought to be able to do more than they can do, and we don't have the money to provide for it. That is why it is so important that we don't do what the minority leader just suggested we do, which is basically shut down as a body and say whatever the Pentagon wants, we just give it to them and hope that they figure it out. We have a role to play in that process, to make sure that the money is spent well because--I know this is news to the other side--the Pentagon hasn't always been right. They haven't always spent their money well. And that is the understatement of the morning. So we need to know: Where are they spending the money? How can we better understand that? Where the nuclear enterprise is concerned, we are set to spend a lot of money.…”