Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution states that the Congress has the power to declare war. Our Congress must re-assert its responsibility in this area. Today we have men and women in harm’s way around the world without Congress having declared war in most of those places. Congress should have hearings about whether or not to declare war in each nation where our people are exposed to hostile forces. Then Congress should vote. If there is no support for declaring war in a nation where our troops are facing hostilities, we should bring our people home.

Congress should pass a law that states that the President may not use nuclear weapons as a first strike without explicit Congressional authorization.

We need a new War Powers Act that explicitly forbids the President from deploying military forces into an existing conflict, or in such a way that a conflict is created, prior to a Congressional declaration of war.

We should increase our investments in the State Department and the Peace Corps. The best way to support our troops is to keep them out of harm’s way. This starts with strengthening diplomacy, not gutting it.

There is plenty of waste, fraud and abuse throughout government, including in the military. We need an outside audit of procurement practices, to determine where savings are possible. A friend of mine who retired from the Marines in Procurement gave me the example that a hammer might have its handle made in Hawaii, its head made in Oregon, and be assembled in Oklahoma. And a consultant would have been paid $500 to write the specs for the hammer. This has got to stop. We must look for efficiencies in the manufacture of tools, equipment and supplies, not seek to distribute the work inefficiently throughout the fifty states simply for the sake of spreading the work around. Billions of taxpayer dollars could be saved.