“The final appropriation is an increase of $2.5 billion over the [fiscal] 2013, post-sequester enacted level, but a decrease of approximately $32 billion below the administration’s budget request of $552 billion,� Kingston Reif, Laicie Heeley and John Isaacs wrote for the Council for a Livable World.

“What Rubio is doing on these nominations and what other Republicans are doing on other nominations is slow-walking them,” John Isaacs, executive director of the Council for a Livable World, told Global Security Newswire on Friday.

“Our nation needs an open dialogue about government spending, especially on U.S. military programs that damage our national security by ballooning the national debt,” writes Lt. General Robert Gard & Board member, Brig. General John Johns, for Roll Call.

“Senator Menendez and his colleagues should rethink this very bad idea and come back from their holiday break with this bomb defused,” writes Council Board member Col. Richard Klass and Lt. General Robert Gard for The Huffington Post.