Missouri’s newest U.S. Senator feels confident he’ll get a seat on the Senate Armed Service Committee. Senator Jim Talent says the drawdown in the size of the military during the 1990s hurt the overall ability of the forces to protect the country. He says long-term spending plans need to be adopted. Talent says he is concerned how much reserve troops are being pressed into full-time action for too long of periods of time. He wants to see a larger, full-time force to allow reservists to go back to the couple of weekends a month they were promised when they signed up.
