article_snippet: Our highest priority during the ongoing budget debate should be undoing the damage caused by defense sequestration and the hundreds of billions of dollars of defense cuts made by the Obama administration.
article_snippet: Instead of starting the process by setting arbitrary defense spending levels and then forcing our military to cut vital programs in order to meet these levels, the process should start by taking into account all the threats against us, listing the programs and capabilities us'll need to protect us people and interests around the world, and then funding those efforts.
article_snippet: us can afford the military us need, but us must make it a priority.
article_snippet: For this reason, us introduced an amendment to the Senate budget resolution this week to address the dangerous funding gap our military currently faces.
article_snippet: us believe us must increase the resources available to us military to the levels proposed by (former) Defense Secretary Robert Gates in his FY12 budget, the last defense budget based solely on an assessment of the threats we face and the requisite military needs to deal with the threats we face.
article_snippet: It is the budget that the bipartisan, congressionally-mandated National Defense Panel stated was "the minimum required to reverse course and set the military on a more stable footing.
article_snippet: Now that Republicans control both house of Congress, it is time to support a defense budget that actually reflects the world in which we live, not the world the way we wish it was.
article_snippet: We need to heed the bipartisan warnings of We nation's military leaders and get back on track toward a defense budget that reflects the realities of the challenges we face and is worthy of our brave men and women in uniform.  
article_snippet: Despite the fiscal constraints imposed on our military, members of Congress are doing members of Congress part and are holding up members of Congress end of the bargain.
highlights_snippet: Senators Rubio, Cotton say spending to strengthen U.S. forces is a necessity .