releases: http://roby.house.gov/column/use-new-majority-properly-fund-military
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| url | title | date | year | month | party | chamber | state | member_name | bioguide_id | domain | scraper | source | date_source | text | has_text | collected_at | updated_at |
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| http://roby.house.gov/column/use-new-majority-properly-fund-military | Use New Majority to Properly Fund Military | 2014-11-10 | 2014 | 2014-11 | Republican | House | AL | Martha Roby | R000591 | roby.house.gov | legacy | Recent gains by Republicans in the Senate have many people wondering what is in store the 114th Congress. My hope is that we will be able to utilize this New Majority to finally move meaningful legislation. There are many House-passed proposals that I would like to see revived: pro-growth jobs bills, federal spending reforms, sensible heath care policy, help for veterans, and energy infrastructure improvements, just to name a few. But, there is another key responsibility for the new Congress to address: beginning to repair the damage to the military brought on by sequestration. Restoring military funds and setting better spending priorities must be a goal of the New Majority these next two years. As I’ve said before, there is a smarter way to reduce government spending than to slash the military budget and hurt service families. Cutting our defense budget again and again has hollowed out our forces and threatened military readiness. General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently used a basketball metaphor to describe how cuts are affecting our state of readiness. A basketball team, he said, needs 12 trained and practiced players: a team of five starters, a team of five backups, and two reserve players. The military needs the same kind of depth to be able to address current threats abroad and be ready to respond to new ones if the need arises. But, if our military was a basketball team, cuts have taken our roster down to only six players, General Dempsey said. Every American should be concerned about how budget cuts are affecting our Armed Forces and what that means for our national priorities. We have fought sequestration for two years, and I have been pleased to get incremental victories in a divided Congress. Now, we finally have an opportunity to repair some of the damage done by these ill-conceived military cuts and restore needed funding. Congress took a small step in the right direction late last year by passing the Bipartisan Budget Act, which restored some military funding and made modest reforms to mandatory spending. I hope that we can use that step and the new Republican majority in the Senate to build momentum for more long-term reforms that help get our fiscal house in order and allow us to set better spending priorities. | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |