Dan Coats: I’m Concerned that Federal Spending Is Threatening Our Ability to Properly Defend Our Nation

EXCERPT:

COATS: "This one internal and somewhat personal. I’m concerned that our increasing fractious political process, particularly with respect to federal spending, is threatening our ability to properly defend our nation, both in the short term and especially in the long term. The failure to address our long-term fiscal situation has increased the national debt to over $20 trillion and growing. This situation is unsustainable, as I think we all know, and represents a dire threat to our economic and national security. Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, first identified the national debt as the greatest threat to our national security. Since then, he’s been joined by numerous respected national security leaders of both parties, including former secretaries of state Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger, as well as former defense secretaries Bob Gates and Leon Panetta, and our current defense secretary Jim Mattis agrees with this assessment."