Lawmakers must make the case to the American people for increased defense spending in the face of increased threats from several sources, including China, which is now a "peer competitor," Rep. Michael Waltz said Thursday before members of the Senate Armed Services Committee were to meet with members of the Trump administration to discuss the defense budget.
"We're dealing with a metastasizing and spreading Islamic extremist threat at the same time we're dealing with – I don't like to call them near-peer competitors – China is now a peer competitor," Rep. Waltz told Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "They've stolen our technological edge."
The United States must also deal with a dangerous Russia that has been "growing its arsenal of low-yield, short-range, very quick flight time tactical nuclear weapon," Waltz said.
"We face unprecedented threats and the number one job of the Congress, the number one job of the federal government is to keep America safe," he said. "Everything else in my mind is secondary. But I think we have to make that case to the American people."
Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, the ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, has said $7 billion tagged for a wall at the border should instead go to defense, but Waltz said there has been some "misreporting on the numbers," as $3.6 billion is "backfilling what we're using now."
"The rest, this $5 billion we just had the shutdown fight over, is not a made-up number," Waltz said. "That's from Customs and Border Patrol . . . these are steel slats in strategic areas in between our ports of entry, where we need some type of barrier."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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