On Tuesday, Air Force Gen. Paul Selva, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was asked to comment on political rhetoric along those lines as the Pentagon unveiled its proposed $582.7 billion budget for fiscal 2017.

“I won’t be argumentative, but I will take umbrage with the notion that our military has been gutted,” Selva said. “So I stand here today a person that’s worn this uniform for 35 years. At no time in my career have I been more confident than this instant in saying we have the most powerful military on the face of the planet.”

AD

AD

Selva added that the military still has challenges and is facing a global set of threats, including terrorism that “consumes the readiness of our force to do the other tasks that we are given as part of our mission.” But he added that “we are far from gutted,” and said that the Pentagon has “the most flexible and determined Air Force on the planet, the most capable Navy on the planet, and a Marine Corps no one can match.”

Added Selva: “I don’t engage in politics. This is the reality of the men and women that serve in our Army, our Navy, our Air Force and our Marine Corps. They’re the best the world has to offer, and we’re going to keep them that way.”

AD

The budget released by the Pentagon on Tuesday is essentially flat when compared to the current $580.3 billion in spending. But for the second year in a row, it includes significant increases when compared to funding adopted from fiscal 2013 through fiscal 2015, when congressionally mandated budget cuts known as sequestration were adopted to save the federal government money.

AD

On Capitol Hill, Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that while Congress will review the Pentagon’s new budget request, “it is already clear that this request is inadequate to address the national security threats we face and the growing demands they impose on our men and women in uniform.”

McCain added that by adhering to the minimum funding allowed by the Bipartisan Budget Act passed late last year, President Obama has left the Defense Department with $17 billion less than what the Pentagon originally planned for in 2017. When considering inflation, the budget is actually smaller than the one Congress approved last year, he said.

AD

“Rather than request an increase in defense spending that reflects what our military really needs, the President’s request attempts to pay for these increased costs by shorting other important defense needs – cutting 15,000 current Army soldiers and 4,000 sailors, reducing major modernization programs, and proposing a pay increase for service members much lower than what is needed to compete with private sector wages,” McCain said.