I do not think it serves any particular purpose to make promises that nobody has any intention of keeping.

We have all these grand ideas of what we want. We do not have the money to get there.

We cannot keep piling missions on our service members without ensuring they have all they need to succeed.

We cannot wait until we solve our budget problems to adequately fund our military.

I cannot help but think that it is because...you did not want to look at it and see just how outlandish those numbers would be versus the money we have.

This is a very big bill that covers a lot of different subjects, and just because you are not on the committee doesn't mean it isn't important to you.

I am reasonably confident that North Korea sees the threat of launching a full-on war against South Korea or Japan and the consequences of that.

U.S. presence in that region has never been more important.

We should give you a clear budget, every year, clear appropriations to give you the freedom to implement that as is necessary.

I don't agree that we can somehow pull defense out of the entire rest of the Federal Government.

As much as I would love on this committee to be able to pull defense out and say we can ignore everything else, we aren't just members of the defense committee.

The uncertainty that has accompanied the defense budget has made it very, very difficult to operate.