Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent there be 30 minutes on each side for this amendment. I do not know how much time Senators might request, but I have been informed there may be several Senators who wish to discuss the matter, and 30 minutes on a side would be sufficient. Does the Senator from Nevada wish to be recognized?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, has it been read? Was the amendment read in full?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, the Senator from Nevada has an amendment, and I know he is willing to accept a short time agreement. But I would ask him to offer it, have it read, and then we will see how much time may be required.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. STEVENS. I now urge the adoption of the amendment.

Mr. STEVENS. The amendment has now been modified according to the submission I made?

Mr. STEVENS. I send to the desk a modification of that amendment on behalf of Senator Bayh and his cosponsors and myself.

Mr. STEVENS. I thank the Senator. I do make the motion to table and reserve the right to decide what to do. Under our understanding, we will have Senators from our side of the aisle offer amendments now. I see the Senator from Nevada here. He has an amendment. Before that, if he doesn't mind, I ask unanimous consent that we return to the amendment of Senator Bayh and have it put before the Senate.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I have no intention to deny that. I may wish to ask the Senator to modify his amendment at a later date, so I would like to not get the yeas and nays yet, but I will agree to them when the time comes, if necessary.

Mr. STEVENS. I apologize. I thought the Senator used his time.

Mr. STEVENS. I am not prepared to agree to the yeas and nays at this time.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I now move to table the amendment of the Senator from Florida. I ask unanimous consent that it be set aside to occur in the sequence that beings at 10 minutes of 2.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I have to agree with my colleague from Florida that additional funds will be needed in the VA medical care account in the future. That, again, is a job for the 2004/2005 bill. Those people are coming out of the service and are cared for a period of time after they leave the service and the VA picks them up at the end of that time. This $365 million is strictly for the medical needs of returning veterans from the war in Iraq. I remind the Senate we appropriated $23.9 billion for VA medical care for fiscal year 2003. That was $2.6 billion over the amount made available in 2002 and $1.50 billion more than the President request. The VA medical system was adjusted for what we believe will be the demands on the VA for returning veterans during the period of this fiscal year. Again, there is no question there will be additional funds to meet medical needs of returning veterans and they will be defined, I am sure, as we get into the fiscal year 2004 bill. I do know that there are some problems in the VA, but they are not in funding. They are systemic problems that need to be addressed. I have every confidence in the current Secretary of the Veterans' Administration, Secretary Principi. He has visited with me personally. As a matter of fact, he worked here in the Senate. We know him well. He was a staff member to the Senate committee. I do believe he is sincere in telling us these funds are not needed at this juncture. The funds that may be needed in the future must be addressed on the basis of the needs as the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan and the war on terrorism proceed. I state categorically to the Senate I do not oppose additional funds to meet the medical needs for returning veterans. I will oppose putting them up now. Only 3 months ago we gave the VA $2.6 billion more than they asked. The situation is a difficult one. When the Senator finishes his statement, I intend to move to table his amendment because it is not our proper process now to deal with returning veterans' needs from the VA that might exceed funds already available for fiscal year 2003. I hope to work with the Senator from Florida. I assure him, obviously, there are many of us here on the floor of the Senate who are veterans. We would not in any way take action to deny the funds that are necessary to meet their needs, particularly these gallant people who are over there now. No one on the floor of the Senate yet has mentioned the stories on the front pages of all papers in America today about the gallant young lady who fought the fight in Iraq, almost to her own death, and after the death of several of her colleagues. She was trained as a supply clerk. She is one of the veterans, now, that will have needs. I assure the Senate we are going to see those needs are met. Jessica Lynch is an example for all Americans, and particularly for young women. I have had several comments about her gallantry and we are all inspired by her gallantry. But the subject now is what is her need? There is available, for this fiscal year, the balance of the $23.9 billion that this Department already has. When the time comes, I am confident that Secretary Principi will request additional funds for fiscal year 2004 as they are defined, but let's not precede that. Let's not put additional money up. This will be money for 2003. I state categorically there is no evidence any additional money is needed in fiscal year 2003 for the Veterans' Administration. As soon as the Senator has completed using his time, I will make a motion to table his amendment, regretfully.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. I ask that we consider the Allard amendment as pending before the Senate and it be agreed to.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, is the pending business the Durbin amendment to the Stevens amendment?

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. That is the reason I introduced it and had it set aside so we could address the question of whether we should make it a closed subject. We can calculate that amount right now. But it may be changed before this bill is over. The bill keeps going up. It is already up more than the President asked for, and I believe it to be another $5 or $6 billion before we get the bill to conference. In any event, the problem is, what are we going to do? Do we proceed with the three wars we have going up on, and then, my God, we may not be able to do that because if we do that we will exceed the debt ceiling. The President has the power--under food and forage--to start spending money. We have a program for other purposes, for the conduct of these three wars. I take the position he should not be constrained at all by a debt ceiling. It is my duty to raise that debt ceiling. Again, I apologize to my friend. I would like to address, when the Senator is finished, Senator Durbin's comment about the pending amendment. This is not the pending amendment.

Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. STEVENS. In my office, sir. I apologize. I have addressed this with several other Senators. I apologize and I have taken it upon myself to say it is my error, but the amendment is there and it is my duty to raise the subject of the debt ceiling.

Mr. STEVENS. I repeat my apology. My memory is we discussed whether we should address it, the debt ceiling.

Mr. STEVENS. The whole bill is legislation.

Mr. STEVENS. Unless it is perfected as the Senator suggests in terms of a problem with regard to the money.

Mr. STEVENS. We don't have the same memory, as a practical matter. I understand the Senator's position. I did introduce it and set it aside because I wanted people to understand I believe it is my duty to see to it that this subject is addressed during the consideration of this bill. I am informed we will reach this problem sometime in June, July, or August, unless we do lift the debt ceiling. I do not think we can go through this period of war and have that hanging out there and be a subject that might constrain defense spending. What I have done is introduced an amendment to this bill that says we will increase the debt ceiling by the amount we have spent since September 11 to meet the interests of our Department of Defense, homeland security, and reaction to September 11. If the Senator says that is open ended, I don't think it is open ended. I can figure it out fast and we will be glad to put the number in there if that will satisfy the Senator's objection. I do think it will be an interesting debate. We, undoubtedly, will have to raise the question, but based on our long friendship, I sincerely apologize if my memory is incorrect.

Mr. STEVENS. I am sorry. It is my memory we discussed that ceiling problem and the Senator said he did not want to take it up.

Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, I ask the distinguished Senator of the Armed Services Committee to review it. I raised this at one of the first hearings we had before the Appropriations Committee. I raised the question of what to do about imminent danger special pay. The Department has not given us a recommendation yet. I think they have other things in mind right now, but we have in mind the families in particular. I spent some time with families in Alaska this last weekend, an enormous number of military families. Not one of them raised the question of imminent danger pay. Not one of them raised the question of their family separation pay. I was with literally 200 or 300 members of the armed services over the weekend at a special recognition in Fairbanks, AK, for the members who serve in the armed services. I think this is the right thing to do, and I think this is the right time to do it, but I hope the Senate will do it right and not just have a figure that is pulled out of the air. These are figures that represent an increase, again, of 50 percent for imminent danger pay and a 100-percent increase for the family allowances on a monthly basis. I think that is very reasonable under the circumstances. If there are additional amounts that should be provided, I welcome the Department of Defense so informing me. I do believe the Senate ought to agree with it without debate. As I said, if the Armed Services Committee and our Appropriations Committee believe more is needed as we go on, if this war goes on, God forbid, into fiscal year 2004, then we should address it. Again, I say, in all sincerity, we are doing a lot of things for our military families, and I think they are all wonderful. When I was overseas, I did not talk to my family for over 18 months. Now a military person can call his or her family every day, thanks to Senator McCain. They have absolute assurance of instant communication whenever they can get to a phone. I remember seeing one young man who was wounded, and the embedded journalist had a satellite phone. He asked: Would you like to call home and tell them you are all right? And we all watched him call his family. That is the wonder of technology. These are the realities of money, and our job is to manage the money of the United States. The first amendment I put in was to raise the debt ceiling of the United States because of what we have had to do since September 11. I want people to think about--and Senators should think about--the hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money we have spent so far because of September 11. Let's stay reasonable as we continue to increase that spending. We have to pass that amendment. We are going to have to raise the debt ceiling of the United States. Other people want to pick a figure out of the air. I say let's raise it by the amount of what we have already authorized to be spent in these three wars and homeland security. That seems to me to be reasonable. I will debate that one later, but right now I think this is a reasonable request in the Senate: Increase the imminent danger pay by 50 percent, increase the overseas allowance for families and the family separation allowance by 100 percent. I hope the Senate will support this move. It is a reasonable thing to do. I call on the Department of Defense to come up with some basic studies as to what is necessary. It may be that portions of that family separation allowance should be bifurcated. These are all volunteers now. In the past, we went to war with draftees. Most of us did not have families. During World War II, it was a rare thing to meet somebody who was a married person. Now, practically all of them are married. As a matter of fact, in some instances, such as the families I visited over the weekend, I remember distinctly talking to three different couples who are both in the armed services. When they go overseas, they get two family separation allowances, and necessarily so. This may not be enough in some of these circumstances, but I think it is the duty of the Department of Defense to come up with a recommendation for a permanent solution to this problem. There is no question that the $150 we had in place has not been adjusted now since 1997, and it should be. This is the time to adjust it. I think this is a reasonable adjustment, 50 percent for the imminent danger pay, $100 for the family separation allowance. I yield the floor.