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Last updated on Wednesday, February 7, 2018
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - Congressman Jim Banks (IN-03), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, Tuesday spoke at a Republican leadership press conference on the benefits of tax reform in northeast Indiana, and the importance of Congress fully funding our military.
Text of the remarks follow:
"When I'm back home in northeast Indiana, I continue to hear the good news about Hoosiers receiving bigger paychecks, about businesses expanding, and employers investing resources back into their companies. Just last week, a company in my district, 20/20 Custom Molded Plastics in Bluffton, Indiana, announced that it's raising wages for every single one of its employees because of tax reform.
"What may be 'crumbs' to some is not to working-class Hoosiers back home in Indiana. I'm hoping that we can build on the momentum that we've achieved with tax reform by focusing on another very important priority for my district, and that's rebuilding our military. I was deployed to Afghanistan in 2014 and 2015, the most recently deployed member of Congress, and I saw firsthand our military readiness crisis. It's affecting not just the training and resources, but also the morale of our men and women who wear the uniform and serve our country. This is a real and growing problem. Just last year, 80 service members died in training-related incidents, while 21 service members died in hostile-related incidents, to put that into perspective.
"While some in Congress are arguing over unrelated issues and holding hostage funding that our armed services need, lives are at risk. Funding our military should never be a political tool, and I urge my Democrat colleagues to do the right thing and give our military the resources that they need.
"Each day that Congress fails to provide these resources is another day that our enemies increase their capabilities and put our men and women at risk."
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