‘Budget Agreement Is Indispensable For Our National Security’

JAMES MATTIS, Secretary of Defense: “I cannot overstate the negative impact to our troops and families' morale from all this budget uncertainty. Today's Congressional action will ensure our military can defend our way life, preserve the promise of prosperity, and pass on the freedoms you and I enjoy to the next generation.” (Sec. Mattis, White House Press Briefing, 2/07/2018)

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MITCH McCONNELL (R-KY): “The agreement will allow for the funding levels recommended by the NDAA conference report – authorization levels secured by the stalwart leadership of Chairman McCain and our colleagues on the Armed Services Committee. What does this mean for our men and women in uniform? It means putting a stop to the decline in combat readiness. It means knowing their weapons systems will be delivered, maintained, and kept on the cutting-edge.” (Sen. McConnell, Floor Remarks, 2/08/2018)

HOUSE SPEAKER PAUL RYAN (R-WI): “This agreement delivers on our commitment to fully fund our national defense—no more short-term ploys and patches. Secretary Mattis will finally have the resources to rebuild a badly-depleted military, and implement his strategy to prepare for rapidly evolving threats. There will be greater certainty for the Pentagon, and for our warfighters in harm’s way. And we are breaking Democrats’ Obama-era insistence that funding for our military be tied to increases in non-defense spending. These are enormous strides for our national security.” (Speaker Ryan, Press Release, 2/07/2018)

SEN. JOHN McCAIN (R-AZ), Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman, and REP. MAC THORNBERRY (R-TX), House Armed Services Committee Chairman: “This budget agreement is indispensable for our national security. Without it, our military would not be able to defend our nation, as Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and our military leaders have repeatedly warned. Today’s agreement will provide our men and women in uniform with the training, capabilities, and support they need to keep America safe and rise to all of the challenges that we ask of them. Congress’s budget dysfunction has come at a real cost, and our military has borne the brunt of it. This budget agreement finally does what we knew needed to be done from the beginning and funds our military at the level authorized in the National Defense Authorization Act. After nearly a decade of asking our troops to do more with less, we hope this agreement will allow the military to begin to rebuild and ensure that process can continue into next year.” (Sen. McCain, Press Release, 2/07/2018)

SEC. MATTIS: ‘If We Are To Sustain Our Military's Primacy, We Need Budget Predictability’

SEC. MATTIS: “If we are to sustain our military's primacy, we need budget predictability. Congress must take action now to ensure our military's lethality is sufficient to defend our way of life, to preserve the promise of prosperity, and to pass on the freedoms we enjoy to the next generation.” (U.S. House Of Representatives, Armed Services Committee, Hearing, 2/6/2018)

SEC. MATTIS: “…no strategy can survive without the necessary stable, predictable funding. Failure to modernize our military risks leaving us with a force that could dominate the last war but be irrelevant to tomorrow's security. We need Congress to lift the defense spending caps…” (U.S. House Of Representatives, Armed Services Committee, Hearing, 2/6/2018)