thrilled to be here in the ben franklin room pyrrophyte " epitomizes so much of what is good about the character of our two countries -- passionate, diligent, a man prepared to stand up for his values and that his words with deeds. in the best tradition of our two nations, he was also a straight talker. he once said guests are a bit like fish -- they begin to smell after three days. you will be relieved to know having a ride yesterday, i am leaving tomorrow. [laughter] -- having our ride yesterday. i want to start by paying personal tribute to the mr. -- half -- by paying personal tribute to mr. vice-president. i remember in the 1990's when you spoke out for the need of military intervention to stop the ethnic cleansing in bosnia. your right to do that, and in libya, i believe we showed we learned a lesson. we were able to intervene and act and change the course of that country's history, and we were right to do so, said today, we applaud your vision and your courage. [applause] also, a word of deep gratitude to you, madam secretary. you have been a great friend to britain for 20 years, and no one will ever forget your contribution in northern ireland, your incredible resilience, and your conviction that he's really could be achieved after so many decades of conflict, and i hope, mr. vice-president, with your relatives are looking down, they will see that the relations between britain and the republic of ireland had never been better, and it is a testament to one woman, her majesty the queen, on her 60th year on the throne, that her visit to the republic of ireland did so much to restore relations between our two countries. [applause] in just three years, you've visited 95 countries. you have travelled over 700,000 miles. some people wondered how two british conservatives would get along with this great force of the democratic party. that is, we in britain say, quite simply, we have been bowled over. whenever we come together to discuss the most difficult issues, whether it is afghanistan, libya, syria, somalia, you always speak with the greatest precision and the greatest power. everyone of us is in all of the passion, the intellect, and the relentless energy you bring to every aspect of international affairs, and you also bring great energy and effort to something else -- to one of the greatest pieces of unfinished business in human history. the emancipation and the empowerment of women. [applause] there are a generation of young women out there in the world today who owe you much more than they will ever know because they can live safer, more dignified, more fulfilling lives than the generations that came before them. you are also a great champion of smart power. that is why i wanted to just say a word about today. after two years of working hand in glove with the united states, i know we are at our best when we are not just strong but we are smart, when we deploy everything we have at our disposal. in a world of complex problems, there are no simple, easy solutions. take somalia where there is a vicious circle of state failure, economic collapse, piracy, terrorism, kidnapping, famine. as our conference in london showed last month, a credible solution cannot just be about military action or even aid and isolation. we will only succeed when we bring together all of our military, diplomatic, political efforts to achieve peace and prosperity. that is also why we in britain do not just see our increased spending on aid as doing the right thing morally, although we do believe that -- we also think it is the right thing diplomatically and politically as well. it enhances our ability to get things done. this kind of smart power is one of the great strengths that britain and america have in common, and i think it is very much on show looking around the room today. this morning, once again, british and american men and women in uniform got up to serve to get there. in the persian gulf, afghanistan, the indian ocean, and we honor their incredible service and their sacrifice, but we are not just strong because of our military alone. we are strong, too, because of the power of british and american diplomacy. as secretary clinton put it, the tide of war is receding, but its troops come home, civilians remain to carry out the critical missions of diplomacy and development. across the world, specialists are working to understand and influence countries in shaping the big issues, including in very challenging and very dangerous locations. minute by minute, hour by hour, there are phone calls between london and washington as our diplomats work together to assess the latest intelligence and work out the best ways forward. in fact, our national security advisers last year talked so often that i think the president was beginning to believe that there was someone called rick donovan who was just one individual rather than two working together. our smart power comes from more than our ability to defend our security. it is rooted in the intertwining of two people and two communities. britain and america continually shape the world because whether you are scientists, innovators, businessmen and women, athletes, or stars of fashion, art, or music, all of you look across the atlantic in both directions to find kindred spirits with the same big ideas and the same big ambitions. so at this, the home of smart power, in the midst of this memorable visit, let me end with a tribute to all of you -- to the people who day in and day out make this the essential relationship that it is today and what it will be tomorrow and the years to come, and let me ask all of you, please, to raise your glasses to the vice- president, dr. baden, and the secretary of state -- the vice- president, dr. biden, and the secretary of state. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [room noise] >> later, the white house held a state dinner in the honor of prime minister david cameron and guests included warren buffet and richard branson and andrew sullivan and actor george clooney. here are the traditional toast from the dinner offered by the president and prime minister. ♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states and mrs. obama, accompanied by the prime minister of great britain and mrs. cameron. [applause] ♪ ♪ ♪ [no audio] [no audio] >> good evening, everyone. please have a seat. welcome to the white house. i was just telling the prime minister that so far, the evening has been successful because i have not stepped on michelle's train. [laughter] my main goal this evening. michelle and i could not be more honored that you could join us as we host our great friends, the prime minister of the united kingdom, david cameron, and his remarkable wife, samantha. give them a round of applause. why not? [applause] as i said this morning, this visit gives us an opportunity to return the gracious hospitality that her majesty, queen elizabeth, as well as david and samantha and all of the british people showed us during our visit to london last year. i know michelle looks forward to returning because, as she announced yesterday, she will be leading the u.s. delegation for the opening ceremonies of the summer olympics in london. [applause] i am jealous. now, i am so grateful for all of the time that david and i have had together. as we have learned, you can never tell how things will get reported as a consequence of our interactions. when we met two years ago, we exchanged beers of our hometowns. one news story said david cameron and barack obama cemented their special relationship by hitting the bottle. [laughter] when we had a barbecue for some of our service members, we decided to roll up our sleeves and flip some burgers ourselves. one reporter called it a brave and foolish move. another expressed surprise at our confidence. michelle remarked the same way. when david and i got beat badly in table tennis by some london kids, one newspaper asked the head coach of the british olympic women's team to critique our performance. he said obama talked a lot and david overhits the ball. both of them looked a little confused. [laughter] but in moments like that and in all of our interactions, including today, i have learned something about david. in good times and in bad, he is just the kind of partner you want by your side. i trust him. he says what he does and he does what he says. i have seen his character and i have seen his commitment to human dignity during libya. i have seen his resolve and determination to get the job done, whether righting our economies or succeeding in afghanistan. i will say something else. all of us have seen how you, as a parent, along with samantha, have shown a measure of strength that few of us will ever know. tonight, i thank you for bringing that same strength and solidarity to our partnership, even if you do overhit the ball. we are by no means the first president and prime minister to celebrate the abiding bonds between our people. there has been no shortage of words uttered about our special relationship and i was humbled to offer my own last year when i had the opportunity to address parliament in westminster hall. i would like to leave you tonight with two simple images from different times and places, decades apart. but they are moments that reveal the spirit of our alliance and the character of our countries. the first is from the blitz. month after month, the british people braved the onslaught from the sky. one of the enduring images from those days is of the london skyline, covered in smoke with one thing shining through, the dome of st. paul's cathedral. tall and proud and strong. the other image we know from our own lives. that awful september day, the unforgettable picture of the manhattan skyline covered in smoke and dust with one thing shining through, our statue of liberty. tall and proud and strong. in those moments, i think you see all you need to know about who we are and what brings us together tonight. in war and in peace, in times of plenty and in times of hardship, we stand tall and proud and strong together. as free peoples committed to the dignity of all human beings, we will never apologize for our way of life nor labor in its defense. that is why david's grandfather fought alongside us yanks after d-day. why my grandfather marched across europe in patton's army. that is why both american and british soldiers are getting ready to go on patrol in afghanistan like generations before them, shoulder-to- shoulder. it is why our diplomats and development workers are side- by-side, standing with the activists. for the right to save a child from drought or famine. while leaders of our countries can embrace the same shared heritage, the promise is our alliance, even if we come from different political traditions, even if the prime minister is younger than nearly 200 years of his predecessors. even if the president looks a little different than his predecessors. and that is why tonight, our young children and children across the country can sleep well knowing we are doing everything in our power to build a future that is worthy of their dreams. i intended to make history tonight. i thought i could be the first american president to make it through an entire visit of our british friends without quoting winston churchill. [laughter] then i saw this great quote and i thought, come on, this is churchill. [laughter] it was december and the attack on pearl harbor had thrust america into war. these were the words that winston spoke to his american partners. "i will say that he must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked here below of which we have the honor to be the faithful servants." i would like to propose a toast. to her majesty, the queen, on her diamond jubilee, to our dear friends, david and samantha, to the great purpose and design of our alliance. may we remain, now and always, faithful allies. cheers, everyone. david. [applause] >> president obama, the first lady, ladies and gentlemen, it is a tremendous honor to be here this evening. i want to thank you for putting on such a great dinner and for making our visit so special over the last two days. thank you also for all of those strong and beautiful words that you have just spoken. michelle, i am sure that, like sam, you wonder what happens when your husband goes out for a night with the guys. maybe i should come clean about last night. we went to basketball and we had a man-to-man chat. barack tried to confuse me by talking about bracketology but i got back at him by running through the rules of cricket. [laughter] so often we find we are completely overshadowed by our beautiful wives. [applause] as i rolled into bed last night, i said, samantha, and do you want to hear what i was up to on the guys' night out? she is not too impressed by these things. she said, everything you did was on television. you were surrounded by the presidential bodyguards so presumably, you did not get up to anything. [laughter] both barack and i have said a lot about the importance of the relationship between our countries and people. like my predecessors, i am proud of our essential relationship and of britain's strong national bond with the united states of america. i feel it in my bones. there is a great history of close relationships between u.s. presidents and british prime ministers. importantly, these have been regardless of the political parties they happen to represent. her majesty, the queen, is a great authority on the matter. she has seen, and she likes to tell me this, no fewer than 12 british prime ministers and 11 u.s. presidents during her time on the throne. i am sure everyone would want to pay tribute her incredible service and selfless duty in this, her diamond jubilee year. [applause] her majesty's first prime minister was winston churchill, a regular guest at the white house. i am not going to quote from churchill but about churchill. it seems his visits were not the easiest for the american hosts. "he drinks like a fish, smokes like a chimney, he has irregular routines, sleeps days and is up at night and turns the clock upside-down." for those who know why the prime minister does not stay at the white house anymore, we all know the winston churchill was found naked in his bath by president roosevelt. [laughter] this happened while he stayed at the white house in 1941 and the federal government bought blair house in 1942. [laughter] for every genuine presidential- prime ministerial friendship, there have been some total disconnects. edward heath and richard nixon took personal issues with each other to new heights. richard nixon arranged for someone to pay for the swimming pool at the prime minister's country residence of checkers. incidentally, this swimming pool now has a serious and possibly terminal leak. [laughter] i hope you will not find it a myth, as i say here in the white house, for the first time in 40 years, it is time to call in the plumbers. [laughter] turning to obama-cameron, as fellow parents, michelle and barack have been very kind to sam and me. we have struck up a good partnership. we talked through issues and do not need to remind each other of the basic threats that we face. we know them. but there are three things about barack that really stand out for me. strength, moral authority, and wisdom. strength because he has been strong when required to defend his national interest. under president obama, america got bin laden. [applause] and together with british and coalition forces, america has fundamentally weakened al qaeda. the president says what he will do and sticks to it. i will never forget that first call on libya when he told me exactly what role america would play in libya and he delivered his side of the bargain to the letter. we delivered our side of the bargain, too. let us all agree that the world is better off without bin laden, and gaddafi, too. [applause] moral authority because barack understands that the means matter every bit as much as the end. america must do the right thing, but to provide moral leadership, america must do it in the right way. the first president i studied in school was theodore roosevelt. he talked of speaking softly and carrying a big stick. that is barack's approach. in following it, he has pressed the reset button on the moral authority of the entire free world. wisdom because he is not rushed into making flights, but has started america's resources of hard and soft power. he has taken time to make considered decisions, drawing down troops from iraq and surging in afghanistan. he has found a new voice with the air of people. -- with the arab people. he has realized that in america, as in britain, the future every citizen. both our nations have been held back by inequality. now there is a determined effort in both of our countries, most notably through education reform, to ensure that opportunity is truly available for all. 50 years ago, the amazing courage of rosa parks, the visionary leadership of martin luther king, and the inspirational actions of the civil rights movement led politicians to write equality into the law and make real the promise of america for all of her citizens. in the fight for justice and the struggle for freedom, there is no end. there is so much more to do to ensure that every human being can fulfill their potential. that is why our generation faces a new civil rights struggle, to seek the price of the future that is open to every child as never before. barack has made this one of the goals of his presidency, a goal he is pursuing with enormous courage. it is fitting that a man whose own personal journey defines the promise and potential of this unique nation should be working to fulfill the hopes of his country in this way. barack, it is an honor to call you an ally, a partner, and a friend. you do not get to choose the circumstances you have to deal with as a president or a prime minister. and you do not get to choose the leaders that you have to work with. but all i can say is that it is a pleasure to work with someone with your strength, clear reason, and with fundamental decency in this task of renewing our great national alliance for today and the generations to follow. with that, i propose a toast to the president, to the first lady, and to the people of the united states of america. cheers. [applause] [applause] ♪ >> on "washington journal this morning, we examined this and a transportation bill that calls for $100 billion to be spent on highway-related projects and then we will talk with the manhattan institute and the brookings institution and income and equality in the u.s. and after that, a mental health and u.s. military expert plus your e-mails, phone calls, and tweets. [video clip] live.ngton journal" >> our ancestors came across the country and sailing ships would not go across a lake in. when they arrived, there was nothing here and they built their tiny cabins and they did it with neighbors helping one another, not federal grants. >> as candidate's campaign for president this year, we look back 14 men who ran for the office and lost. go to our web site c-span.org/ the contenders to see video of the contenders to have a lasting impact on american politics. >> this is also the time to turn away from an excessive preoccupation overseas to the rebuilding of our own nation. america must be restored to her proper role in the world but we can do that only through the recovery of confidence in ourselves. >> c-span.org/the contenders. >> the armed services chairman criticized president obama's defense department budget request yesterday saying it will cause soldiers to get pink slips instead of a ticker-tape parade. he spoke about national security challenges and the defense budget at the ronald reagan presidential library in california. this is half an hour. >> there was an ominous reference to the soviet union in the advertisement and as the narrator gravely warned that there is a bear in the woods. the point was that unpredictability was a dangerous -- of a dangerous enemy was a threat that must be taken seriously. is ripe with the unpredictability and america's 21st century strategic outlook is a tangled mess. a senior military leader recently told me, in my 37 years of service, i have never seen a time as dangerous as today. we live in a globalized economy where commerce and communication are networked to an conflict in a remote region of the world can ripple across and burger -- borders, fakes, and economies. i am concerned about a world where the flop of a butterfly's wings can create a tornado. that means we must make preparedness a top national security priority. the price of liberty, thomas jefferson once wrote, is eternal vigilance. dwight eisenhower echoed that sentiment. everyone knows his remark about the military-industrial complex. let me tell you another thing he was famous for -- he was the soldier that hated war. i quote what he set about peace -- "the vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. our arms must be ready, must be mighty, prepared for instant action so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk its own destruction." two russians once protected with ronald reagan called the shining city on the hill -- two oceans once protected what ronald reagan called the shining city on the hill. the middle east is undergoing an historic shift. the iranian quest for nuclear weapons is perhaps the gravest threat to the global order we have seen since the collapse of communism. as populism realigns the muslim world, the lines between sects of islam are sharpening. have foughtshias for centuries and iran, the most political exporter of terrorism, wants to probe nuclear weapons into that mix. people often ask, would iran dare to use nuclear weapons? i ask you -- can we afford to believe they will not? can we afford to believe that china, which just this month announced a 12% increase in military spending, will allow our pacific allies to live in peace? ronald reagan master the art of keeping this nation out of hostilities. today, we tend to forget that we are a nation at war. though the mission is in a far off land and in an unfamiliar culture, we also forget the sacrifices of a generation. , our new greatest generation, that have kept us say since the september 11 attacks. californians have led the way and our defense both at home and in the field. duncan hunter, the son of former chairman of the house armed services committee, joined the marines right after 9/11, leaving his wife and children at home, he served three tours in iraq and afghanistan and then took his seat, his father's seat, in congress and now sits on the house armed services committee would meet. men like california assemblyman jeff gorell, a navy officer who just returned safely from the afghanistan, we are lucky that californians and as americans to have these men and women who have taken the time in defending our freedom and representing our values. their story has been repeated over and over. citizen soldiers who have given up time with their families and their careers to deploy into harm's way. it is tragic that their story can be subdued when a lone individual commits horrible acts. this past weekend it appears we lost a soldier to his demons and it caused many afghan civilians their lives. people that we have tried desperately to help recover from three decades of conflict. when you look at the war through that terrible violent acts, it seems hopeless and lost. i know the american people are heartsick over what has become -- of what has become of the afghan mission. i share their fear that we may be a draft -- we may be adrift and i'm sure we're suffering from a lack of commitment at the highest levels. the reason we liberated afghanistan in 2001 was right then and it is the same reason we fight today to keep it liberated. we overlooked the fact that for every one chaotic event that loops and his plea in the media, there are infinite tales of heroism and courage, selflessness and integrity that are never reported. president bush gave over 40 speeches about the war on terrorism and the importance of victory updating the american people. president obama has given three. we must do a better job of communicating the importance of this fight. we must do a better job highlighting the stories of courage and daring of our military and what they have etched into the stone of history. our troops have earned that honor. our troops deserve the honor. our principles have not changed. we reject those who would kill women and children to serve political ends. we reject those who use violence to intimidate free people in the submission and compliance. and we reject those who would convert afghanistan back to a launching pad for terror. we rejected them and when it is necessary and in our national interest we must meet them with force. there are risks and results take time. but asking if afghanistan is a winnable fight is the wrong question. what we should be asking is if we still believe that the greatest force on earth is american resolve. we should ask if we believe in imposing limitations on ourselves. an insurgent as the cutoff is come upon a democracy can fight. routing them that takes patience. over the past 18 months, we have not the taliban on its backside. we demonstrated that life in iraq, the right strategy and ample force levels can bleed the toughest insurgency drive. we must be extremely [inaudible] when the talk about pulling forces out before we have achieved our goals. we can still leaving afghanistan with our heads held high and the taliban defeated but it will take resolve and patience. as president reagan demonstrated, americans excel at both. it is worth mentioning that aside from conducting oversight of the war, one of my chief responsibilities as chairman of the house armed services committee is building the defense budget. for fiscal year 2013, the budget we received from the president was really concerned. the budget cuts, $43 billion from a wartime military. it cut 23 ships from the navy's fleet. many senior flag officers have testified that the fleet is already too small to fulfil its operational requirements. it cuts 150 planes from the air force despite the tragic need, urgent need, for tactical airlift in places like afghanistan. it cuts a whopping 80,000 soldiers from the army, 20,000 marines. instead of coming home to ticker tapes, these brave men and women will come home to pinks lips. instead of marching in victory parades, they will stand in unemployment lines. that is shameful. these cuts are real and we will all start feeling them soon. they will affect every american base, insulation, and military unit in the world in some way, shape, or form. they will not just heard our national security. these cuts are deeply damaging to our defense and they will hurt everyone associated with the military. the families from camp pendleton that have endured extended deployments for the last decade, the teachers who educate children of deployed heroes, the civilian workers who do maintenance at edwards air force base, the taylors of base who tailored uniforms, and the assembly line worker who turns branches on airplanes in palmdale. our national defense, the most sacred and regis responsibility of the federal government, is larger than just those who wear the uniform. when we cut the services and support that keeps our military potent, we hurt ourselves in ways beyond national security. let's not forget that when we must take up the fight against freedom's enemies, it is the job of congress to make sure it is not a fair fight. the cuts take us right to the limits of acceptable risk. because the congressional super committee failed to reach an agreement on mandatory spending, a sequestration mechanism will kick in next january 1. sequestration takes all day cuts that i outlined and doubles them. it pushes us far past the limits of acceptable risk and would put this great country in great danger. the joint chiefs had months to prepare for the tough reductions in the budget control act but sequestration does not afford that luxury. the cuts are blind. that means that the defense department will have to go line by line through everything in the budgets and take of eight or 12% depending on what they do about personnel. from each line item. as one admiral testified our committee, how you cut 12% of bay ship? if sequestration passes, we will begin today process cut approximately $100 billion per year from the military for the next decade. the cuts will force another 100,000 troops out of the army and marines and will shrink our navy to its smallest size since world war one, and the air force will be the smallest in history. will not modernize our nuclear deterrence which has not seen replacement systems in decades and is the smallest since the early 1950's. active-duty military, reservists, federal civilians, and contractors will be laid off. some assembly lines in shipyards will close. we estimate that around 1.5 million people will lose their jobs as a result of the defense cuts and sequestration. we will go to your not one but two rounds of base closures. southern and central california will be particularly hard hit. economic areas around military bases, the ones that survive, will experience a decrease in business. we should all be alert and aware of what could happen to the military, our parents and grandparents built, and the armed forces that ronald reagan refined. president eisenhower said that the way people that values its privileges over principles is doomed to lose both. we should ask ourselves -- will this be the moment right now when america abandoned its special role in the world and transformed itsself from a superpower to a regional power? is this the point where america puts their privileges and entitlements ahead of their principles? in the latest budget, the administration in spending in every department while the military absorbs massive cuts. they do this knowing that our debt is sinking this nation and sinking it fast. they think that if they tossed the military over board, they might be able to stay afloat. that is a bunch of baloney. if you cut the entire defense department, we would still be running huge deficits. that is how much our entitlement programs cost and that is how expensive these programs have become. they now threaten our first and most sacred entitlement -- the right to safety, life, and liberty. despite this gloomy strategic outlook, i am not so pessimistic. i believe we can first protects and then restore our armed forces. i will not be a partner to the management of this great nations decline. i will not be complicity in the dismantling of the reagan military. my priorities as chairman for the coming budget are straightforward -- i have a three pillared philosophy toward revitalizing our military forces. there first, results sequestration. second, reverse these massive defense cuts and finally, restore and rebuild america's military. the first step in staving off the dire sequestration scenario is buying us sometime to move past the election where we can look at this in a reasonable way. i have introduced a bill that would pay down the first year of sequestration by naturally shrinking the federal workforce. that work force has grown exponentially since 2009. while the president proposes laying off more than 120,000 troops, he has hired 120,000 new federal bureaucrats. this bill does not fire federal workers by decreases of the ranks naturally -- nationally. if one person quits or retires, two others must quit or retire before an agency can hire another worker. this was actually a bipartisan solution that can from the president's own debt commission. it pays for the most damaging year of sequestration, next year. and moves the budget debate into calmer waters. this is a sample, acceptable solution to a problem, i am open to any compromise or any plan that pays down sequestration in a responsible manner without crippling americans with tax hikes during this fragile recovery. from there, it is my concern and hope, my sincere hope, that congress can work on a bipartisan manner on a year by year basis, thus winning in spending without sacrificing our national defense. the second pillar is reversing the first tree does of defense cuts that we enacted as part of the budget control act last summer. i voted for the bca. i did so because we were facing a government default that would have, among other things, cut off salary payments to our troops. as chairman, i could not let our military go without pay. i held my nose and voted for bca with the votes that we could fix the serious problems which the bill shortly thereafter. that is why one of my top priorities is getting that half a trillion dollars back. taxpayers recommended that everything should be on the table for deficit reduction. i agree. if we cannot find half a trillion dollars, shame on us. explain to me why defense is less than 20% of the federal budget but has accounted for half of the spending cuts to date. taxpayers said to cut the fat out of defense and we did that. we're past cutting the fat and past the muscle and now we are cutting into the bone. the consequences are being felt. look no further than the historic strategic shift we were forced to adopt this year as the president gave a speech. the administration's forced reductions means we can no longer sustain the strategy that has kept america safe for decades. we will no longer have the forces to stay strong in critical -- and. the administration announced a new focus on the pacific rim. i am also working hard to ensure that the pivot to asia is not an empty one. the administration calls it a strategic pivot. i call it a head fake. a pair of it implies that you have some body weight behind a movement. the pivot implies that you have some body weight behind the movement. we will do our utmost to ensure the strategic shift is a viable and does not place our troops at unnecessary risk. there is no disagreement that it is a vital region. we should be worried about china when the just announced another double-digit increase in their defense spending. we spend about half of our base defense budget on personnel, investing in their health care, education, living allowances for our troops. china buys things that shoot and they can buy far more for their dollar that we can. we must do our utmost to reverse the defense cuts enshrine in the budget control act. to help in surepivot to asia is not hollow. that means reinvesting in modernization for our air force, navy. we will see to modernize its air that in c-130's and c-5's predate the reagan administration and will try to hold back cuts to the navy crews force, finding the money to the proper upgrades. we will hold the administration accountable on the promise they made to modernize our aging nuclear deterrence in exchange for ratification of the start treaty. we must also allocate resources for contingencies like iran. we will be looking to place emphasis on vital weapons should the irony is determined that a peaceful nuclear-free existence is not in their best interests. our defense bill this year will reflect the appropriate resources for things like bunker-busters, munitions, countermeasures for mines and appropriate sensor and intelligence platforms. we will continue to focus heavily on countering systems like iran and china would use to deny free transit to the international community. my obligation as chairman is to insure that the president uses the military option against iran and that option is a credible one. what happens to the world economies if we cannot ship strategic resources out of the persian gulf? what happens if we cannot stop iran from closing the strait of hormuz? there are too many trouble spots in to many regions for us to abandon the two conflict strategy. the first round of cuts forced us to abandon the defense, on doing the military defense in the budget control act and that will allow us to return to that proven strategy. the third and final pillar is to restore a military chewed up from 10 years of fighting. this is the longest war we have had in our history. when the increase defense spending during the bush years, we spend money on things like body armor u,av's and armored vehicles. we did not upgrade replacement systems that were canceled during the clinton years. today's military is by and large a smaller version of the reagan military. most of the planes, ships, and tanks were built during his administration. we must end this on official procurement holiday and get our forces the tools they need to win the current war and to deter future wars. that means repairing and replacing equipment that was lost and damaged in places like iraq and afghanistan. it means upgrading and restoring our nuclear deterrent which is falling apart after two decades of neglect. most importantly, it means we take care of our people. in last year's defense bill, we acknowledged that modest increases in certain areas of military health care worker. . those fees were both reasonable and small. recent proposals to pomp of the military health-care by up to 300% is absolutely unacceptable. when our troops made the decision to volunteer for service, they entered a separate agreement with this government. part of that agreement was that their medical needs would be met. we made a solemn covenant with them. we cannot, we must not, break it. to maintain a strong america, we need our all-volunteer military. are we ready as a nation and a people to embrace the concept of helplessness on the world stage? are we prepared to accept the possibility that someone other than on us can shape our destiny? we will do what we can on the committee and with this defense bill but it is not going to be easy. to put it plainly, we need your help. we need your help in restoring the concept of the reagan military. just the name and votes the concept of strength and certitude. i need you to be advocates for the principles of president reagan. i need you to stand with our troops. i need you to reject intervention, government intrusion in our lives and refocus this great republic back to constitutional obligation for the common defense. these cuts can be stopped, perverted, held off but it requires each of you to be involved and the vocal and the strong. how could we call ourselves reagan republicans if we sit quietly during the most systematic and catastrophic cuts to an institution that reagan helped to build it? remember the tribes of the reagan military -- the cold war, the great threat of air time, ended without a single shot being fired. the gulf war is where we decimated the world's fourth largest army in less than one month. remember reagan + three legged stool, the compass that keeps us focused on our conservative principles. when we are strong and when we stick to those principles, america does wonderful thing. we cannot walk blindly through this defining. in our nation's history. we cannot ignore the lessons of the past. i believe in optimism. i believe in confidence and i believe with your support, we can stage a resurrection of this great country. we have taken our lelicks and this past decade has been tough but we have an aborted revolution, a civil war, a great depression, two world wars, and nicole. warps every -- and a cold war. every time we get dropped we climbed m ofat. our job as californians and as americans is to stiffen that result. the ability to control our on destiny is what makes us american. the power to guide our destiny is what makes as great and our determination to protect the destiny is what makes usfree. to beer, let's determined masters, not victims, of our fate. . god -- thank-you. god bless our armed forces and god bless the great state of california and god bless america. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> coming up on c-span, the senate environment committee will have a hearing on nuclear safety. on c-span2, live coverage of the senate begins at 9:30 a.m. they're scheduled to work at a bill reducing regulations on small and medium-size businesses that go public. on c-span3, the center will give it about medicare legislation. that is live at 830 eastern a.m. up next, today's "washington journal"with your phone calls. in about 45 minut,