Glad youre here and appearing before this committee today to discuss your departments fiscal 2018 budget request. As you know, the budget is significantly challenged in terms of the cuts in your department. I think the proposed cuts of 2. 3 billion are about onefifth of the departments operating level. Certainly while i appreciate and many of us appreciate the departments prioritizing limited resources and making decisions to realign programs, the fundamental question is really what you choose to cut and whether you can possibly look at that number and make an argument as to why that much of your previous budget should be cut this year. Its not the first time these kinds of cuts have come in the department. Last year president obama proposed about the same level of cuts, though he proposed somehow these programs would lean heavily on new mandatory spending for the budget caps in the law then. Of course, those budget caps are in the law still. Instead of making difficult decisions, it w
Glad youre here and appearing before this committee today to discuss your departments fiscal 2018 budget request. As you know, the budget is significantly challenged in terms of the cuts in your department. I think the proposed cuts of 2. 3 billion are about onefifth of the departments operating level. Certainly while i appreciate and many of us appreciate the departments prioritizing limited resources and making decisions to realign programs, the fundamental question is really what you choose to cut and whether you can possibly look at that number and make an argument as to why that much of your previous budget should be cut this year. Its not the first time these kinds of cuts have come in the department. Last year president obama proposed about the same level of cuts, though he proposed somehow these programs would lean heavily on new mandatory spending for the budget caps in the law then. Of course, those budget caps are in the law still. Instead of making difficult decisions, it w