Scott Klug: “First of all, I think it is a test for Republicans, whether we are going to apply the same kind of scrutiny to the…”

“First of all, I think it is a test for Republicans, whether we are going to apply the same kind of scrutiny to the Pentagon that we apply to every other Federal agency. I heard my colleague from California, Mr. Hunter, come to the well a few minutes ago and say, ``Look, we came up with this list of what the Department of Defense needs because that's what the Department of Defense told us they needed.'' Do we really deal that same way with any other Federal agency? If the Environmental Protection Agency came in and said: We need this money. You got it. Or the EPA came in and said: We need this money. You got it. Or the Interior Department came in and said: We need this money. You go it. Of course not. We have said to every single one of those Federal agencies over the last 2 years, ``We're broke.'' We are broke as a country. We are hundreds of billions of dollars in the hole this year, and we are several trillion dollars in the hole in terms of the national debt itself. And so we have asked every one of those agencies to operate more intelligently and more efficiently.”