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Congresswoman Kat Cammack (R-FL-03) Leads Bipartisan Letter To Secretary Austin With House Florida Delegation Regarding Funding For Florida National Guard

March 24, 2021

GAINESVILLE, FL – Today, Congresswoman Kat Cammack (FL-03) led a letter to Secretary of Defense Austin with Rep. Val Demings (FL-10) signed by all members of the House's Florida delegation regarding more equitable funding and resource allocation for the Florida National Guard in the FY2022 Defense Budget.

The letter describes how the Florida National Guard's deployment to aid with Florida's pandemic response and vaccine rollout has supported the statewide delivery of vaccines and food distribution, ensuring more than five million Floridians have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to date.

Given the tremendous efforts of the Florida National Guard over the last year, the letter highlights the disproportionate force structure allocation for the Sunshine State. With a population expected to grow by five million in the next decade, the letter spotlights the inadequate guardsman to citizen ratio for the state which currently employs 12,000 guardsmen instead of the proportional 21,000.

The letter urges Secretary Austin to review the Force Structure Proportionality study required in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act to ensure that the Florida National Guard has the force structure and resources necessary to keep Florida safe and secure.

The full list of the letter's signees includes Reps Cammack, Demings, Gaetz, Dunn, Rutherford, Lawson, Waltz, Murphy, Posey, Soto, Webster, Bilirakis, Crist, Castor, Franklin, Buchanan, Steube, Mast, Donalds, Hastings, Frankel, Deutch, Wasserman Schultz, Wilson, Diaz-Balart, Gimenez, and Salazar.

You can view the full letter here.

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