Magnolia State News

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss., ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on June 1 announced that he would be opposing a debt limit and budget agreement now pending before the Senate:

"We are living in the most dangerous time since World War II. Adversaries like China are expanding their military capacity, and our nation’s fiscal health is putting our future prosperity at risk.

“Like families and businesses do each year, the U.S. government needs to get its priorities straight and make a plan to operate within its means. For me, that means putting our national defense first and making cuts to domestic spending to help get our budget back on track.

“Speaker McCarthy deserves recognition for his work to negotiate this package, but the pending debt ceiling agreement does not do enough to address our rising debt. Even worse, this agreement would enact President Biden's woefully inadequate defense budget for the next two years.

“I will not be a part of raising the debt ceiling if it also means that we will be locking in cuts to our national defense. I will oppose this agreement when it reaches the Senate floor."

Earlier on June 1, Wicker participated in a floor event with other Senate defense hawks to highlight the dangerous effects of the planned cuts to national defense.

“The world is in the most dangerous situation we’ve seen since World War II. This Biden budget – which is now enshrined in this debt ceiling bill – is woefully inadequate,” Wicker said on the Senate floor. “It amounts to a cut in defense capability.”

Wicker’s remarks were echoed by other senators, including Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Mike Rounds, R-S.D.

Wicker warned that the United States is in a period of extreme danger without adequate resources to sustain our national defense. This year’s budget cycle, Wicker said, is the last in which Congress can accomplish major changes to U.S. military posture in the Pacific. Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping has repeatedly mentioned 2027 as the year he intends to have a military capable of offensive action against Taiwan.

“We’ve got three or four years to get ready for the time when Xi Jinping says…he wants to be ready for war against the United States, a war over the island of Taiwan. The decisions we make on June 1 can be implemented if we have the resolve to do them by 2027,” Wicker said. “But we need to make those decisions this year. We don’t need to put them off until next year, and we certainly don’t need to say we’re going to go with the Biden cuts in readiness.”

The Armed Services Committee leader has repeatedly called for 3 to 5 percent real growth in the defense budget to match threats from Russia, China, and other hostile actors.

Read Senator Wicker’s full remarks as delivered below, or watch them here.

What I want to say, Mr. President, is what I've been saying all along this year since the Biden budget came out.

The world is in the most dangerous situation we've seen since World War II, and this Biden budget, which is now enshrined in this debt ceiling bill, is woefully inadequate.

It amounts to a cut in defense capability. It sounds like an increase. You could call it an increase.

But inflation is running at 7%. And so, we'll have to increase defense spending by that much simply to keep up with what we did last year.

And we would have to increase by several billions more in order to give us the capability that we need to prevent war in the Pacific.

And so, I just have to say that the fact that this is being called a victory by some people on our side of the aisle is absolutely inaccurate.

Pundits around the country had called this budget amount inadequate.

And now for some reason, because it's part of an agreement that the Speaker has made, it's being applauded.

The numbers don't lie, and I'll tell you this…I'll say this to my friends: we've got three or four years to get ready for the time when Xi Jinping, the dictator, president-for-life in Communist China, says he wants to be ready for a war against the United States – a war to take over the island of Taiwan.

The decisions we make on June 1 can be implemented if we have the resolve to do them by 2027. But we need to make those decisions this year. We don't need to put them off next year. And we certainly don't need to say we're going to go with the Biden cuts in readiness and do 1% more next year. That is woefully inadequate.

And let me say this, before I yield to my friend from Alaska. It's easy to hide…it’s easy to hide inadequacies in a defense budget. People still get their Social Security checks. They still get their paychecks.

When it comes home to roost for us is when a conflict breaks out. We weren't ready for World War II, and when the flag went up, and we were in a war suddenly we were way, way behind.

We were ready under President Reagan. And we had peace under President Reagan.

When we are ready, we have the ability to avoid conflict. And this budget simply does not do that.

Original source can be found here.