Ron Kind: “I have great respect and admiration for the two gentlemen who have been serving on the Defense Appropriations Committee…”

“I have great respect and admiration for the two gentlemen who have been serving on the Defense Appropriations Committee for years and I am not going to stand here and pretend that I know more about the defense budget than these two gentlemen do. I don't. But I do tend to listen carefully to our own military leadership at the Pentagon. Secretary of Defense Gates said about the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle that over two decades the program is going to consume half of the Marine Corps procurement funds and nearly all of the ground vehicle budget, something they are trying to avoid. Even though the Marine Corps Commandant General James Amos has supported the EFV in the past, he has now recognized that this is 'an onerous fiscal program.' So if we can't start here with these programs, where are we going to go in defense for cost savings?”