Defense and Veterans

The world becomes an unstable place when America fails to provide global leadership.  This President has shown a troubling lack of foreign policy knowledge and an inconsistent commitment to defeating our enemies.  This President’s foreign policy failures have resulted in the rise of a civil war in Syria, a violent conflict in Ukraine, the fall of two concurrent regimes in Egypt, the rise of another vicious Sunni extremist group, and an increasingly dangerous proxy war being fought between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims in Yemen. 

I strongly believe that President Obama's nuclear agreement with Iran is a bad deal or our nation and our world. It blindly ignores Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism, continued threats to Israel, and numerous human rights abuses.  Iran's continued march toward nuclear weapons is one of the gravest threats facing the United States, Israel, and our allies and I am committed to holding this Administration accountable for its failure to act decisively and in the best interest of the American people.

Congress must continue to support a military that has the capability to engage any and all threats to the safety and security of our nation, including ensuring that the men and women of our Armed Forces have the best possible equipment, support, and training available so they can succeed whenever and wherever they are deployed. I’ve always worked alongside likeminded colleagues in Congress to ensure our intelligence gathering services have the tools necessary to keep our troops and homeland safe from attack. However, I recognize these tools can be abused and will continue to fight to protect the civil liberties of the American people, as enshrined in our Constitution.

I support legislative efforts to strengthen our national security by pursuing important objectives:

• Preventing regimes and terrorists that seek chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons from threatening the U.S. and the world.
• Preventing rogue regimes like Iran and North Korea and states that harbor terrorist organizations from acquiring nuclear weapons.
• Shutting down terrorist camps, disrupting terrorist plans, and bringing more terrorists to justice.
• Securing our nation’s borders and ports.
• Defending both military and civilian infrastructure from domestic and foreign cyber threats.
• Protecting critical infrastructure and key assets .
• Ensuring emergency preparedness and response.

Veterans

We can never repay the debt we owe to the men and women who have served this country. But we can remember and reflect upon the freedoms we enjoy due to the tremendous sacrifice of our active duty and veteran community. I will continue to fight to ensure that our veterans and active duty soldiers are properly compensated, receive the care that they deserve, and that their sacrifice is properly memorialized throughout my service in Congress. The Veterans Administration has failed to do right by our servicemen and women and I am actively working to hold them accountable for their gross mismanagement.

I am committed to protecting and serving our nation’s more than 20 million veterans and military retirees and their families. Every single budget proposal that President Obama has put forth since 2011, he has proposed military and military retiree compensation cuts, including cuts to the military healthcare program TRICARE, to spend the savings on other programs. House Republicans have successfully fought back against this President’s agenda on behalf of our men and women in uniform, but there is still work to be done. In this era of unprecedented threats, uncertainty, and technological change, I remain committed to ensuring that America's Armed Forces are agile, efficient, ready, and lethal. And that when they return home, they have access to the finest healthcare our nation can offer.