The head of the House Armed Services Committee doesn't think the military has enough money.

Just hours after President Obama argued for military funding restraint in his final State of the Union address, Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, pushed back against the suggestion that the armed forces are fully funded to meet national security demands.

"Military strength requires both quantity and quality of capability," he said at a news event at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. "The Obama administration argues that a ship today is more capable than one twenty years ago. Generally, that is true, but a ship can still only be at one place at a time

"And we need enough of them to protect against the threats all around the world. We do not have enough of them today."

Thornberry and defense hawks in Congress have been pushing for increased defense spending for years, arguing that even the $600-billion-plus projected for fiscal 2017 military funding falls short of what's really needed to re-equip and modernize the services after 14 years of war.

In his Tuesday address, Obama noted that the United States spends "more on our military than the next eight nations combined," calling talk of underfunded security needs nothing more than "political hot air."

Thornberry accused the administration of planning to reduce next year's military spending below levels agreed upon by Congress last fall, calling it a dangerous decision.

"I am disturbed at rumors that the administration may not keep to the agreement in its budget submission," he said. "That cuts people, weapons, research."

The budget plan won't be unveiled until early February. Thornberry vowed to fight against any such defense cuts, suggesting that domestic programs and entitlement reforms could generate better savings without incurring security risks.

"The world is more dangerous today than it was in 2009," he said. "But, it is certainly unlikely that the Obama administration will do anything in its last year to change that situation or to alter that trajectory.

"No president is irrelevant, but the country and much of the world are moving on."

Those comments were a clear shot at Obama's promises to keep pushing forward on key issues during his final, lame-duck year in the White House.

Lawmakers have offered similar criticism that Congress is unlikely to achieve much amid an election year, but Thornberry said he still hopes to tackle a number of complex Pentagon reforms: a military health care overhaul, updates to the defense acquisition process, a re-examination of the services' leadership structure.

"We cannot fix the personnel system or acquisition or DoD organizations in a single bill or even in a single Congress," he said. "We should take measured steps, listening carefully to everyone involved in the system, especially the end users who are our war fighters. And then take further steps.

"We will not get everything done this year, but we will not be sidetracked by those who argue that we should not try, that it is just too hard, too complicated. We will fulfill our essential duties under the Constitution."

Leo Shane covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for the Military Times newspapers. He can be reached at lshane@militarytimes.com.

Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.

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