Buck McKeon

Mr. McKEON

Mr. McKEON. Relaiming my time, when I was home over the last weekend, Mr. Chairman, I was visiting with local school administrators and school board teachers. They wanted to go over some of the cuts we were talking about. They agreed that some of the cuts were necessary, but what they asked was if possible, then, would we not continue the mandates. If we are going to cut back the funds, let us not continue with the mandates. I am in strong support of that. I think when we cut back funds, we also should cut back mandates so we do not burden the local communities.

Mr. McKEON

Mr. McKEON. No. What it is is we raised the lower limit so those who were borrowing a very small amount, up to $600, not as many of them would be able to borrow. We went to the higher amount so that those who were the neediest could get the full amount. This has been, I think, healthy to have a discussion. There is a lot that we can talk about just on the actual merits of what the real numbers are. I think that the purpose of this whole debate is, I am new here in Congress. I have been here now, this is just starting my second term. It has been a real education to me. I came out of private industry. I was a businessman. I really did not know how the Federal budget worked or what the process was. I am still learning, every day I am learning. But the big thing I have learned is that we have a debt of almost $5 trillion. And these young people in school and their children and their grandchildren are going to be paying this debt. It used to be, when I was a young person, our parents worked all their lives to pay off the mortgage and then leave the farm to the children. And now it seems like what we are doing is spending our entire lives mortgaging the farm and the Government takes the farm and the children are left with the debt. We need to turn that around. This is just one of the things that we are looking at to save a little money. I think as we spread this across the board, spread the pain of arriving at this balanced budget over a 7-year period, we will all benefit.

Mr. McKEON. The numbers are there.

Mr. McKEON. Yes. That is over a 7-year period. And that gets us to the $10 billion that we need to save. I think what we really need to keep sight of is to stick with the facts. That is really important. I think they are bad enough as they are. There are going to be cuts, but we do not need to scare people needlessly. The other night when I heard the President talking, again saying that we were eliminating the subsidy for students, it is just not so. I think really for the office of the President, he really should stick with the facts. He has enough to talk about on his side of the issue without distorting the facts.

Mr. McKEON. We held a news conference on July 27 and indicated that we would not be going after the in-school subsidy or the graduate school subsidy. So that information has been out over 1 month. The Presdient certainly should have it. I can get you a copy of this tonight.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would like to continue this, what the program is, any student can have a loan and the Government will subsidize their interest while they are [[Page H 8893]] in school. Then when they graduate, if they do not go on to graduate school, or, if they do, they have a 6-month period where they do not have to repay the loan. Then they begin repaying the loan. They have 10 years to do that. During that 6-month period, their interest at current law is also subsidized. If they go on to graduate school they can continue to borrow money and also receive an interest subsidy. The undergraduate and the graduate subsidy will not be touched. What we are talking about is eliminating, as part of this, about a third of it, the interest subsidy for the 6-month period. And what that works out to be is a student that over the next 4 years borrows the maximum, little over $17,000, when they do begin repaying it, the maximum that that could be is about $9 a month. And we feel that that is fair, from $4 to $9 a month; we think that is a fair return considering that there are a lot of young people that are not able to go to school and their taxes are helping to subsidize those that do. Does that kind of answer that?

Mr. McKEON. We raised it $100 per individual.

Mr. McKEON

Mr. McKEON. $3.5 billion from eliminating the interest subsidy for the 6-month period. In other words, right now a student, any student, can get a loan to go to school. Any student. If they meet the requirements, if their income is low enough and they meet the requirement, the Government will subsidize the interest while they are in school. That is the current law.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate the opportunity to engage in this dialog, because what the gentleman is saying just is not true. I think it is probably just because the gentleman has not had a chance to see our proposal. But there is no elimination of the in- school interest subsidy for graduate students or undergraduate students.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker will the gentleman yield?

Mr. McKEON. Correct.

Mr. McKEON. OK. $1.2 billion comes from the termination of the direct loan program. $4.9 billion, and this is what is really interesting, because the other night the President in his speech said that we were cutting to help the bankers. In reality, we are going after the bankers and the lenders for half of this. $4.9 billion, we are decreasing their profit to make up half of the $10 billion. $3.5 billion comes from the subsidy for the interest from the time that they graduate until they have to begin paying the loan.

Mr. McKEON. Right now, any student that wants, and this is really important, because I think some of this rhetoric is scaring parents and students needlessly, because as the President commented the other day, he said this should be a nonpartisan issue. It really should be. We should be working together on this. We were talking about eliminating those subsidies. We found other ways to do it. The President was talking about eliminating those subsidies. This probably was first suggested in the memo from Ms. Rivlin. But we found ways to do it without eliminating those subsidies.

Mr. McKEON

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, today we will hear a lot of facts and figures from proponents and opponents of the B-2 program. However, I believe that we should look back in history when we consider whether to continue production of the B-2. Let me first go back 3 months ago when Capt. Scott O'Grady was shot down in a mission over Bosnia. As we remember, our whole Nation was focused on the fate of this young pilot, and we did not even know his name or anything else about him at the time. The fact today is that the American people are unwilling to accept large war casualties, and I support them in that. In order to minimize American casualties, we need to ensure that our military forces are equipped with the means necessary to defend U.S. interests in an environment where many nations possess deadly offensive weapons. Let me go back a little further in history. Every time, as the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Skelton] pointed out, that we have redirected defense spending to nondefense programs, we have had to eventually build up our military forces. I realize this money for the B-2 can be used on a number of other programs but can proponents of those other programs guarantee to me, to this body and to the American people that the United States will not need a bomber force in the future? We have 15 years invested in this and over $40 billion, and now when they can build the planes cheaper, when the production line is there, we are talking about cutting it. That just does not [[Page H 8613]] make sense. I do not think that they can guarantee that, and the real issue is, if B-2 production is capped, our ability to produce modern bomber aircraft will vanish quickly. History has demonstrated that it will again be necessary to produce these aircraft, which will then require a massive expenditure in the future. I have been to the floor. I have seen where these planes are made. I have talked to the people that are building these planes. To lose this capability and this ability is something that we should not even be talking about here today. It is important for us for our future. I urge support of this bill and opposition to the Obey-Dellums-Kasich amendment.

Mr. McKEON

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, today we will hold an important vote on the future of our Nation's bomber force. With this in mind, I would like to outline excerpts from a recent report by the Congressional Research Service on the B-2 bomber. This is a neutral organization that does not advocate or oppose defense programs. Members opposed to modernizing our bomber fleet will discuss what they view as alternatives to the B-2. Listen to what the report says about these alternatives: Alternative No. 1--Tactical aircraft. Tactical aircraft are manpower intensive and require large numbers of tanker aircraft and nearby, properly equipped military bases or carriers from which to operate. Alternative No. 2.--Cruise missiles. Cruise missiles are expensive-- up to 70 times more costly than bomber-delivered direct-attack weapons--and offer comparatively little firepower. Alternative No. 3.--Theater ballistic missiles--Theater-based ballistic missiles have very limited range and are also more costly than bomber-delivered direct-attack weapons. Of course, the fourth alternative is to do nothing and fly 1950's-era B-52's until they are 70 years old, which has been suggested by officials within our Defense Department. Last month, we witnessed a potential consequence of this mentality when an engine dropped from a B-52 in flight during a routine exercise. We should not let this happen to the men and women of our Armed Forces. Vote no on the Obey-Dellums-Kasich amendment.

Mr. McKEON

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I rise to discuss a few key points on higher education that are contained in this bill. First let me say this. In a perfect world, a world without these enormous deficits as far as the eye can see, it would be nice for us to consider providing additional support to our Nation's college students. They hold the future of the Nation in their hands, and they deserve our support, all that we are able and can afford to give. However, this is not a perfect world. Given our current fiscal environment we have one overriding issue we must focus on over and over above all others, and that is reducing the Federal deficit. Given this priority, this is a bill that does the best it can for higher education. This is a bill that does a number of important things for higher education, such as providing the highest maximum Pell grant in the history of the program. It saves important campus-based programs such as work study and SEOG. It restricts the Department of Education's ability to spend wastefully on its gold-plated direct loan program by eliminating its ability to spend on lavish trips for bureaucrats and campaign ads for the President. These key items as well as other key education reforms that my subcommittee is considering provide important supporting to higher education. Because of the fiscal realities we are facing, the time is now to bring much-needed focus to Federal higher education programs. This bill does what it needs to do. It puts us on a path toward a balanced budget while at the same time supporting key higher education programs for young Americans.

Mr. McKEON

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I just turned on the TV in my office and saw two of my friends talking about the B-2, one of my favorite subjects.

Mr. McKEON. I am looking out 20 years. I think our responsibility should be to really look out 20 years, 30 years, 40 years. I know one of my good friends on the other side of this issue has said there will be another bomber at some point. I think that is a total fallacy. It takes $10 billion to $15 billion now to get a [[Page H 8029]] fighter up, ready to be built. Who around here is going to vote $25 billion, $30 billion or $40 billion just to get another bomber developed? Why spend that kind of money when we have the great B-2?

Mr. McKEON. That is right. But even then, when all the B-52's are gone, we are down to 95 B-1's. The study that was given to us, that we should be able to fight in two places at one time, we need 174 long- range bombers, we would be down to 95, and then you add the 20 B-2's that we have now.

Mr. McKEON. I really appreciate what you are doing. The B-2 is built in my district, and a lot of people say that is probably the reason that I am a strong supporter. That is one of the reasons. Because it is in my district, I have had the opportunity of going down to the factory, going down on the floor, seeing the assembly lines and seeing what is being done. A lot of people do not understand that that plane is built differently than any other plane. It is built from the outside in. It has a wingspan of 170 feet, and from one end of that wingspan to the other end, it cannot be off one-thousandth of an inch. We cannot afford to lose this technology. The people that have been trained, the tools that have been put together, all of that is already now starting to unwind. Originally, the assembly line was built for 20 planes; we are down to 6 planes. They have already closed up part of the assembly line. We are losing the people that have been trained, that have put in the time and effort, have the skill to learn how to do this. We are losing that. I think it is very important that we keep our economic base there, our industrial base to build the B-2, but the second and probably even more important reason to me is defense. When you talk about Desert Storm, you could probably talk about other wars that we do not even know about that have never happened because we project power. But we are losing that projection. We are starting to talk now about moving the B-52, which is almost as old as I am, that is pretty old; and the B-1B's into London to use in Bosnia. I do not know how long we can expect our young people, our career people to get in those planes and fly them. B-1 is still relatively young, about 15 years old; the B-52's are 30, 40, 50 years old.

Mr. McKEON

Mr. McKEON. Reclaiming my time, I think you make a good point on the technology. A lot of my friends here in the Congress have asked me, ``Well, is there technology out there, or will there be in the next few years, to make it possible to see the B-2 to make it obsolete?'' I was talking to our ex-Secretary of the Air Force about a month ago, before we had the last vote, and he was going over that with us. He said that all during the development phase of the B-2, we had our best minds working to see if they could come up with a way to detect it. So that we, if the other side had it, so that we could defend against it. We have not been able to find that; it is not available.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker I do not know exactly what you had talked about before I came in.

Mr. McKEON. What do you know? I think it is a very important vote, and it is a lot of money; I think that people need to understand. I am a businessman. This is my second term in Congress. I came here to make cuts, but I also came here to carry out our constitutional responsibility which is to provide defense for this country. Defense is one of the most important things that we need to do. It is our responsibility, as the Congress, to look out for that.

Mr. McKEON. The B-2?

Mr. McKEON

Mr. McKEON. A couple of weeks ago, Charles Krauthammer had an editorial, I think I got it out of the Washington Times. I do not know what other papers it was in. George Will wrote one in ``The Last Word'' in the magazine. Mr. Speaker, I would like to insert these in the Record, if I may. If I could just make a comment on Mr. Krauthammer's. He entitled his article, ``The B-2 and the `Cheap Hawks' '' and he gave 3 reasons why the B-2 is so important. First, American is coming home. In 1960, we had 90 bases abroad. We are down now to 17. We cannot station short-hop airplanes around the world. We have to have range. Second, America will not endure casualties. We do not want to put, as you were saying, our people in harm's way if it can be avoided. Third, the next war will be a surprise, such as every other war we have entered into, and we need to be ready. And the B-2 meets all three of these requirements. It has long range; it can reach anywhere around the world. If we have it in the three bases that we look at, we can reach any key spot in the world in 10 to 12 hours. Fourth, Casualties. It has two personnel on board. Does not need a lot of support and backup because of the stealthiness and the amount of weapons that it can carry. Fifth, If we have an adequate number, we will be prepared and we will have a deterrent. Mr. Speaker, I include the following articles for the Record: The B-2 and The Cheap Hawks (By Charles Krauthammer) We hear endless blather about how new and complicated the post-Cold War world is. Hence the endless confusion about what weapons to build, forces to deploy, contingency to anticipate. But there are three simple, glaringly obvious facts about this new era: (1) America is coming home. The day of the overseas base is over. In 1960, the United States had 90 major Air Force bases overseas. Today, we have 17. Decolonization is one reason. Newly emerging countries like the Philippines do not want the kind of Big Brother domination that comes with facilities like Clark Air Base and Subic Bay. The other reason has to do with us: With the Soviets gone, we do not want the huge expense of maintaining a far-flung, global military establishment. (2) American cannot endure casualties. It is inconceivable that the United States, or any other Western country, could ever again fight a war of attrition like Korea or Vietnam. One reason is the CNN effect. TV brings home the reality of battle with a graphic immediacy unprecedented in human history. The other reason, as strategist Edward Luttwak has pointed out, is demographic: Advanced industrial countries have very small families, and small families are less willing than the large families of the past to risk their only children in combat. (3) America's next war will be a surprise. Nothing new here. Our last one was too. Who expected Saddam to invade Kuwait? And even after he did, who really expected the United States to send a half-million man expeditionary force to roll him back? Then again, who predicted Pearl Harbor, the invasion of South Korea, the Falklands War? What kind of weapon, then, is needed by a country that is losing its foreign bases, is allergic to casualties and will have little time to mobilize for tomorrow's unexpected provocation? Answer: A weapon that can be deployed at very long distances from secure American bases, is invulnerable to enemy counterattack and is deployable instantly. You would want, in other words, the B-2 stealth bomber. We have it. Yet, amazingly, Congress may be on the verge of killing it. After more than $20 billion in development costs- costs irrecoverable whether we build another B-2 or not--the B-2 is facing a series of crucial votes in Congress that could dismantle its assembly lines once and for all. The B-2 is not a partisan project. Its development was begun under Jimmy Carter. And, as an urgent letter to President Clinton makes clear, it is today supported by seven secretaries of defense representing every administration going back to 1969. They support it because it is the perfect weapon for the post-Cold War world. It has a range of about 7,000 miles. It can be launched instantly--no need to beg foreign dictators for base rights; no need for weeks of advance warning, mobilization and forward deployment of troops. And because it is invisible to enemy detection, its two pilots are virtually invulnerable. This is especially important in view of the B-2's very high cost, perhaps three-quarters to a billion dollars a copy. The cost is, of course, what has turned swing Republican votes-- the so-called ``cheap hawks''--against the B-2. But the dollar cost of a weapon is too narrow a calculation of its utility. The more important calculation is cost in American lives. The reasons are not sentimental but practical. Weapons cheap in dollars but costly in lives are, in the current and coming environment, literally useless: We will not use them. A country that so values the life of every Capt. O'Grady is a country that cannot keep blindly relying on non-stealthy aircraft over enemy territory. Stealth planes are not just invulnerable themselves. Because they do not need escort, they spare the lives of the pilots of the fighters and radar suppression planes that ordinarily accompany bombers. Moreover, if the B-2 is killed, we are stuck with our fleet of B-52s of 1950s origin. According to the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, the Clinton administration assumes the United States will rely on B-52s until the year 2030--when they will be 65 years old! In the Persian Gulf War, the stealthy F-117 fighter flew only 2 percent of the missions but hit 40 percent of the targets. It was, in effect, about 30 times as productive as non-stealthy planes. The F-117, however, has a short range and thus must be deployed from forward bases. The B-2 can take off from home. Moreover, the B-2 carries about eight times the payload of the F-117. Which means that one B-2 can strike, without escort and with impunity, as many targets as vast fleets of conventional aircraft. Factor in these costs, and the B-2 becomes cost-effective even in dollar terms. The final truth of the post-Cold War world is that someday someone is going to attack some safe haven we fell compelled to defend, or invade a country whose security is important to us, or build an underground nuclear bomb factory that threatens to kill millions of Americans. We are going to want a way to attack instantly, massively and invisibly. We have the weapon to do it, a weapon that no one else has and that no one can stop. Except a ``cheap hawk,'' shortsighted Republican Congress.