Press Releases

On Thursday, U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz spoke on the House floor about the effects of large military spending cuts on global stability in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act.

“This cut…is an attempt to back us out of the War on Terror. We all want peace. We all want these wars to go away but that doesn’t mean that we can just wish them away…like the Obama Administration tried to do in Iraq. The reality is we can either fight these wars in places like Kabul, Kandahar, Damascus and Baghdad or…the extremism problem will follow us home to places like San Bernardino, Orlando, New York and others.”

Waltz discussed an amendment to reduce the Overseas Contingency Operations account by $17 billion. The OCO funds ongoing war efforts in countries like Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. The House will vote on final passage of the 2020 NDAA on Friday.

“It is irresponsible in the midst of a war to tie the Pentagon’s hands by cutting these funds while we have Special Operators as we speak today in 72 countries. We can have this debate over where we should be and how our service members should be deployed – but to cut our funds in the middle of the War on Terror and try to back us out of these wars because you disagree with them is the height of irresponsibility. We have a moral obligation to our servicemembers overseas.”

A video of Waltz’s full remarks is available here.