Most of us share Heather Heyer’s values, not the depravity of the man who took her life. We are the country that led the free world to victory over f… - John McCain

Let's be clear. The President's veto of this year's bill is not over any of its policies, it is over politics. In the President's case, politics has taken precedence over policies, and when we are talking about the lives of the men and women who are serving this Nation in uniform--disgraceful. For the first time in history, the Commander in Chief will sacrifice national security for his larger domestic political agenda. This veto will not resolve the spending debate; it will not stop sequestration. That is something that can only be done through the appropriations process, not a defense authorization bill. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines have answered the call to protect our Nation. They want and need support. They don't care what budget category that support comes from. I wish to point out we authorized exactly the amount of money the President requested. This is a Washington game. All the men and women who are serving in the military care about is that their mission is fully resourced. With this veto, their mission will not be fully resourced. We will put their lives in greater danger because of this political game of the President--holding the military men and women hostage for his agenda to fund the IRS and the EPA.

Among other places I visited recently, one of them was a place called M.D. Anderson, a cancer treatment facility in Houston, TX. There were patients there from 90 countries around the world. Why? Because it is the highest quality health care. The fundamental difference we have here between those of us who want to reform health care to reduce the cost and maintain the quality is the argument from the President and the other side of the aisle that they want a government option. They refuse to address the issue of medical malpractice reform. They refuse to allow someone to go across State lines and acquire the health insurance of their choice, and they continue to allow practices to go on that breed fraud, abuse, and waste in Medicare, which are well documented to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

Instead of one great power rival, the United States now faces a series of transregional, cross-functional, multidomain, and long-term strategic competitions that pose a significant challenge to the organization of the Pentagon and the military, which is often rigidly aligned around functional issues and regional geography. Put simply, the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 30 years ago was about operational effectiveness--improving the ability of the military services to plan and operate together as one joint force. The problem today is strategic integration--how the Department of Defense integrates its activities and resources across different regions, functions, and domains, while balancing and sustaining those efforts over time. The NDAA would require the next Secretary of Defense to create a series of "cross-functional mission teams" to better integrate the Department's efforts and achieve discrete objectives. For example, one could imagine a Russia mission team with representatives from policy, intelligence, acquisition, budget, the services, and more. There is no mechanism to perform this kind of integration at present. The Secretary and the Deputy have to do it ad hoc, which is an unrealistic burden. The idea of cross-functional teams has been shown to be tremendously effective in the private sector and by innovative military leaders, such as GEN Stan McChrystal. If applied effectively in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, I believe this concept could be every bit as impactful as the Goldwater-Nichols reforms.