"Six years after the Budget Control Act, sequestration, and artificial defense spending caps, the world has become more unstable, and military personnel pay, benefits, and quality of life programs have suffered.Military modernization, training, and other essential readiness programs are adversely impacted. Continuing Resolutions devastate readiness, waste resources and endanger warfighters. Our national security requires stable, predictable funding and prudent long-range planning."
Letter to Congressional Leadership from The Military Coalition, a group of 32 military, veterans, and uniformed services organizations representing more than 5.5 million members plus their families (2/5/18)
"To advance the security of our nation, these troops are putting themselves in harm's way, in effect signing a blank check payable to the American people with their lives. They do so despite Congress' abrogation of its Constitutional responsibility to provide stable funding.Our military has been operating under debilitating continuing resolutions for more than 1,000 days during the past decade.These men and women hold the line for America while lacking this most fundamental Congressional support, a predictable budget."
"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 and support the budget for our military of $700 billion for this fiscal year and $716 billion for next fiscal year."
Secretary of Defense James Mattis HASC Hearing: Give the troops a predictable budget (2/6/18)
"All of this should rattle Members obsessing over funding for this or that domestic account as a precondition for a deal that gives the military stable funding. Credit to Mr. Mattis for exposing this pathetic budget exercise, which has withheld resources from service members who have signed "a blank check payable to the American people with their lives."
