Below is from Chad:
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Exchange between Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey: Dempsey: Clearly, budget certainty, time and flexibility help, but there is a magnitude issue here, too. We built a strategy last year that we said we could execute and absorb $487 billion. I can’t sit here today and guarantee you that if you take another $175 billion that that strategy remains solvent. And if you’re wondering why this is so hard, let me just use the Army — you know, people say, “Well, hell, you did it after World War II; you did it after Vietnam.” After World War II, it went from a million-man Army to 781,000 — after Vietnam, actually, 781,000. It went — in the ’90s, we went from 781,000 to 495,000. We grew it for Desert Storm — for OEF and OIF — to 570,000. It’s on the way to 490,000 because of the Budget Control Act. The question I would ask this committee: What do you want your military to do? If you want it to be doing what it’s doing today, then we can’t give you another dollar. If you want us to do something less than that, we’re all there with you and we’ll figure it out. Chad Pergram FOX News Senior Producer for Capitol Hill
