Let me make a brief comment. And by the way its not only mine but when you look at the brutality, the slaughter and what i. S. I. L. Has been doing, killing, slaughtering, murdering women and children sunni, shia, kurd, minorities of any kind completely indiscriminate and when you add it up represents a pretty clear and different kind of threat. How does that relate to your question about syria . Define a stable government, leaders in syria to be able to bring some stability to that country is part of it. But isil is right now, and isil is threatening the country of iraq, and the government of iraq. And so thats why we are dealing with that component first, because we must. They are a threat to our allies, they are a threat to us. Thank you. Mr. Larson. Thank you mr. Chairman. Secretary hagel, you have my first two minutes and general dempsey will get the next two. For secretary hagel there has been no discussion of the request for 15, which is 5. 6 billion. What do you know about the
That said we really want to take a chunk of the i]budget, go over it and see whether we could do ataq things more effectively whether we could do emphasize some priorities better. I dont think you could do the owhole budget. You certainly couldnt do it every other year. ut you could set up a mechanism the budget say every three years or five years to see if the money could be spent better and the priorities were what congress reallyco wanted them to be. Bob . Can i just ask you a quick question . So is what alice describes on the domestic side, is the military really any different . Isnt there a certain amount of the air force, the navy, the marines, everybody has to get their share of the cuts . Broadly, the budget shares havent changed a lot. Thats a fair statement. Within those shares theyve changed a lot. Let me try to respond. First off i think its way too harsh that suggest that ovq all only 1 of Government Spending has any effect. I will offer just a couple examples. One obvious
Of the department. Cybersecurity is a complex mission for the department and requires a wide range of talent at all levels. Given the urgent nature of d. H. S. s recoupment recruitment efforts, its essential that department have this strategy in place. Secondly, the bill requires the Department Access the readiness and capabilities of its work force to meet its cybersecurity mission. Lastly, the urgent need to fill Critical National Security Missions often leads to an overreliance on contractors. To encourage students to come to work for the government is a vital in this vital arena, this legislation also directs d. H. S. To develop a plan to create a Cybersecurity Fellowship Program. Under such a program, d. H. S. Would pay Promising Students tuition in exchange for a commitment to serve for a fixed period of time at the department in a cybersecurity position. For all these reasons, i urge my colleagues to vote for h. R. 2952, and i reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro temp
You just wrote a book that says a lot of what the government does may not do any good and we spend i omitted the word may. Isnt there some point of having a Budget Constraint here which says to the congress, ok look, live within these things and lets spend more on the stuff that works and doesnt. Thats kind of the idea. Right. A, sent that a good idea . And b, why doesnt that ever happen . Why doesnt it ever happen . Why dont they set priorities and spend more on what they should and less on what they shouldnt . I think its just too hard. The government is gargantuan. Theres a book of Government Programs, if you dropped it on your toe, would you have to immediately go to the hospital. Thousands of pages. The government is just huge. How can you we cant even control the department of defense. We were in a meeting a couple months ago that had an important senior official and department of defense said they dont even know what the budget is. Is that correct . No, thats not right. Im talki
Administration, the president and the congress. So we do a number of things and i think its unfortunate that we suggest otherwise. In terms of accountabilrty, we absolutely know where were spending the money, down to a great deal of detail. You may not like the results that you see. Thats a fair point. And there are priorities set. I mean, i will give you a current example. We have backed much on Ground Forces over the last few years than we have any others. That was a painful decision, i can assure you, within the department of defense, but it was one consciously made based on a strategy that we felt in the aftermath of iraq and afghanistan we could afford smaller Ground Forces and still cutting but not as much the naval and air force. So i think alice is right, we can do better, but it is not as if we are just taking this money and sort of randomly spending it wherever we want and its not the case that theres no effect. Its easy if you mischaracterize someone. Thats not what im sayin