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
Lets go to las vegas. For more on that, Cnns John Berman is there at the venetian. John . Reporter hey, fred. Were just outside the lovely venetian. In this building behind me a gorgeous theater where this debate will be tuesday night. As you say, the last republican primary debate of 2015. Perhaps more importantly, the first debate since the attacks in paris, since the attacks in San Bernardino, and the focus tuesday night will be National Security. Which candidates make the case that he or she is the best one to keep america safe. Also, this is nevada. This is a key early voting state. So the people here, the ones who live here, they will be watching this closely as well. So much at stake here tu night. And we just released the lineup for this debate. Who will be standing where and next to whom . Donald trump, he is the frontrunner. By focus of that, he will be in center stage, but for the first time ted cruz will be just to his left. He is moving ever closer to the center. Ben carso