One of the biggest things China is doing is they are spending a ton of money all across the world to try to curry favor with countries and also build their own economic might.

If we pass this budget that the Republicans want to put before us today, the State Department will continue to be destroyed.

Deterrence is also your diplomatic stance. Deterrence is dialogue.

But that is never going to be more important than it is going forward, given the fiscal situation that we are in and given the threat environment that is as described.

And I think we need to understand it in that context and push back comprehensively to try and create a world that is safe for freedom and democracy.

We are $21 trillion in debt, and counting. The deficit last year was close to $700 billion, and it is going up, not down.

To say that it is not worth doing is like saying, hey, we have screwed it up so bad for so long...

I think the taxpayers deserve at least the same level of confidence as a shareholder in the use of their money.

I applaud your commitment to doing this, and stand ready to have the committee help you in any way we can.

This is enormously important. There are a lot of concerns at the Pentagon.

I too want to specifically thank Mr. Conaway for his great leadership on this issue.