just this week, secretary habel announced furloughs for -- secretary hagel announced furloughs for the defense department. that is over 600,000 civilian d.o.d. employees starting in july will be furloughed.the secretary pointed out that this is going to have a very negative effect on our military readiness. you have senators like senator mccain and senator graham, who have made the point that this is very disruptive to our national security. enough would hope that signatures on the republican side, enough republicans would be willing to replace the sequester in a way that preserves our national security and preserves important -- inments in other health research at the national institutes of health and other essential functions. and that is what we should be doing in the budget conference. that is exactly what the budget conference is for.but we could not get an -- could not get agreement on our proposal to go to conference this week. have been denied the opportunity to vote four times to replace the sequester in the house. >> republicans do see this as a new rallying cry for them, som