Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Thank you, Chairman Price, for your extraordinary leadership.

Mr. Chairman, I am grateful today to join with my House Armed Services Committee colleagues and speak in support of Chairman Price's defense alternative budget, Price 2.

As the chairman of the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee on the House Armed Services Committee, my top priority is to provide adequate funding for our Special Operations Forces who are currently deployed in more than 80 countries worldwide defeating the terrorists overseas. I support our cyber forces who play a critical role in the defense of our national security from state and nonstate aggressors alike. And I appreciate our scientists and engineers who develop the cutting-edge technologies provided for our warfighters to protect American families.

In an environment where our Air Force is the smallest since its creation, the Army is on the path to being the smallest since 1939, and the Navy will soon be the smallest since 1915, we cannot risk reducing our national defense. We can best provide for peace through strength.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to point out that tomorrow we will be taking a vote on two seemingly similar budgets, Price 1 and Price 2, but there are two major differences between the budgets. Price 2 represents the product of fruitful negotiations between the leadership, the House Budget Committee, and the House Armed Services Committee.

In Director of National Intelligence James Clapper's recent Worldwide Threat Assessment before the Senate Armed Services Committee, he said:

In 2013, just over 11,500 terrorist attacks worldwide killed approximately 22,000 people. Preliminary data just for the first 9 months of 2014 indicate nearly 13,000 attacks, which killed 31,000 people. When the accounting is done, 2014 will have been the most lethal year for global terrorism in the 45 years such data has been compiled.

The world is becoming more dangerous, and it is time Congress came together and funded our troops appropriately. Terrorists have declared war on American families.

I would like to thank our leadership team, Chairman Price and Chairman Mac Thornberry, for their work in negotiating Chairman Price's defense alternative, Price 2, and it is my hope that tomorrow we can come together and pass Price 2.

In conclusion, God bless our troops, and may the President by his actions never forget September the 11th in the global war on terrorism.

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