C. Young

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I would like to say to the gentleman and to our colleagues that, normally, I would object to this amendment because this is purely a national defense bill. But I would say the reason I would accept this amendment today, the joint leadership of the House and Senate has decided that once this bill has cleared the House that this supplemental as well as the first supplemental that the gentleman mentioned will be conferenced on a parallel track. So we will be dealing with the issue of the agriculture anyway on the first supplemental. Incidentally, I would say to the gentleman the President did not ask for anything for agriculture. His amendment finally came as an adjustment to his request for the supplemental, Mr. Chairman, and we did add that money in the first supplemental appropriations bill. So I accept the gentleman's amendment today, and I would hope that we could in the interests of time move on because I do not think there is much opposition here. The gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) had raised a similar issue in the full committee and, I think, did a very good job explaining why this was necessary, and so I thank the gentleman for offering the amendment, and, from our standpoint, we are prepared to accept it.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment, and claim the time in opposition.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman, I reluctantly oppose the amendment offered by the distinguished gentleman because I know that he has been such a strong supporter of national defense issues, so I am reluctant to oppose his amendment. However, I think his amendment would give us real trouble. I am not usually one that raises the issue of a presidential veto, but I am satisfied that if this amendment became part of this bill, that it would certainly invite a presidential veto. Mr. Chairman, the budget resolution for fiscal year 2000 already cuts nondefense spending by over 9 percent. The Coburn amendment would increase this by an additional 5 percent, and would make the total reduction for fiscal year 2000 funding that this amendment would cut a 14 percent cut in nondefense spending for fiscal year 2000. That is just not going to work. The fiscal year 2000 problem is already serious enough. The across-the-board cut would force a devastating 14 percent reduction in all nondefense programs, including education, food safety inspection, drug law enforcement, science research, the national parks, drug prevention, crime prevention, agriculture, the National Institutes of Health, elderly housing, and many other programs. It just will not work. So as much as I support the effort that the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn) makes in supporting our strong national defense, I just cannot support his amendment because of what it does to the FY 2000 budget.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I do.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, one of the big arguments here today seems to be the fact that the Congress is recommending more funding for our national defense capabilities than the President asked for. Well, the President's record on estimating the length of time of a military deployment and how much the cost is going to be is not all that great. For example, in Bosnia, for those of us who attended those first meetings about Bosnia, we were told that we would be in Bosnia for about a year, and it would cost about $1.2 billion. But, Mr. Chairman, 5 years later and $10 billion later, we are still in Bosnia. This administration's record on estimating how long the deployment is going to take or how much it is going to cost is not very good. Now, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) likes to make the point that we have included items that the Pentagon did not want, and he makes this argument every time there is a defense bill on the floor. But let me explain how this works. When the administration request comes to this Congress, it does not come from the Defense Department. It goes from the Defense Department to the Office of Management and Budget, and they decide what the Defense request will be to the Congress. So just because OMB does not want something does not mean that the warfighters have not already identified it and told us that, in fact, it was a requirement. And then the point about the Congress doing things that the Pentagon does not want, let me give my colleagues an example. One of the examples of this was the C-17. There were attempts by the administration to kill the C-17. Congress insisted that we needed the capability that the C-17 would provide. I would say to my colleagues, Mr. Chairman, that without the C-17 in the inventory today there is no way that we could be doing in the Kosovo region what we are doing. We just could not get enough of C-5's there into the Tirana Airport in Albania. But the C-17's can carry significant amounts of cargo into that area. The gentleman from Wisconsin likes to continue his conversation about the JDAMs. JDAMs is a good system. But a year ago, there were serious technical problems with JDAMs. Our committee is very, very careful when there are problems not to throw money at it. It does not say we did not support the program. We did make a minor reduction in the JDAMs program because there were technical problems, and we needed to convince the administration that those problems had to be fixed. Let me give Members another example of how that works. The THAAD program, the Theater High Altitude Air Defense system, everybody that understands what that system is knows we have got to have it. We have to have what THAAD would provide. But THAAD has been, unfortunately, a serious failure, so far, in its development. And so the committee took substantial amounts of money from that program to get the attention of the contractor and the administration, to say, ``Fix it. Don't just throw money at something that doesn't work. Fix it.'' That is what we did on JDAMs. We said, ``Fix it.'' So they fixed it. And JDAMs is a good system, and it is well under way now. THAAD will become a good system. We need what THAAD would produce and provide for our troops in the field. But we have got to have a THAAD system that works. So this committee is very careful about what it provides funding for or what it does not provide funding for. That is why when we bring a bill to this floor it is well thought out and can be easily defended. Mr. Chairman, this bill is a good bill. One of the gentleman from Wisconsin's other complaints is the fact that we put a pay raise in this bill for our men and women in uniform. He does not object to the pay raise, but he objects to the fact that we did not spell out the details of the plan. We had an understanding with our authorizing committees, both parties, that we would provide the money but we would allow them to function as their jurisdiction provides so that they would spell out the details. I have confidence in the Committee on Armed Services, and it will address this. The gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer) that we heard earlier on the floor is chairman of the subcommittee that will deal with this. The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence) is chairman of the full committee. The Senate has already passed their plan. We will go to conference on that one shortly, and the pay raise will become effective. The gentleman from Wisconsin mentioned earlier that I had dragged a red herring across the debate. If I could use that same phrase, I think that argument about the pay raise is a typical red herring. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), a very important member of the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis), the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Defense.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla), a member of the Subcommittee on Defense. (Mr. BONILLA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), a member of the Committee on Appropriations' Subcommittee on Defense.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Hill).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Forbes) a member of the Committee on Appropriations. (Mr. FORBES asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time. I was interested in listening to the minority leader's statement about agriculture, and I want to remind the Members that when we were developing the first supplemental that we dealt with, when we received that initial supplemental request from the White House there was nothing in it about agriculture. It was an afterthought. The President afterwards requested that. So we finally got it in our first bill, and it will come to conference basically at the same time that this bill goes to conference, and we will all have a chance to vote on it again. I would also remind the minority leader that the pay that he is talking about that he supports, and I am happy to have his support, the pay is in the committee bill to pay for the men and women who wear the uniform of our country. It is in the committee bill, increased pay as well as the retirement package. But in closing, Mr. Chairman, let me say this: We are in Kosovo deeper than most of us thought we were, and unless Milosevic has a change of heart, we are going to get in deeper, and it is going to be longer and more expensive. We are stretching ourselves too thin. We were planning for two major regional conflicts, one in the Korean theater, one in Southwest Asia. We have taken assets from the Korean theater, an aircraft carrier, U-2 spy planes, F-15 fighter airplanes, a Marine Corps pre-positioned ship, all moving out of that area of responsibility to service the Kosovo activity. We have taken EA6Bs out of the no-fly zones over northern Iraq and southern Iraq. We are stretched too thin. General Hawley made that case very strongly, and I commend him for his courage because he is still an active duty general, that the Air Force is stretched too thin. So is the Army. So is the Navy. So is the Marine Corps. We have got to do something about it, and there should be no politics in this debate when we talk about accomplishing the mission and giving our soldiers some way to protect themselves while they do it. Let us defeat the Obey amendment, let us defeat the Coburn amendment, and let us move on to get this bill to conference so that we can get it back to our colleagues here within the next week or 10 days. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, let me explain where we are here. The House expedited the consideration of that first supplemental, and I will concede there has been some undue delay in going to conference on that bill. I want the Members to know it is not the fault of the leadership of the House, and it is not the fault of the Committee on Appropriations, but I will not go any further than that. The answer is, yes, we do expect that the leadership will sign off on a plan that would allow this bill that we will vote on today and the original supplemental to be considered in conference at the same time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. If the gentleman will continue to yield, that is correct, yes.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman makes a very good point. I think it is ill-timed at this point, and I would hope that the House would reject the amendment.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I continue my opposition to the amendment. The House has already voted on this issue. Every Member has had a chance to be recorded, and I think all of us agree that we would hope American ground troops would not be deployed anywhere unless the very direct security interests of the United States is threatened. But here is why I oppose this amendment today. This is real. This is an appropriations bill. It is real. I just do not think Congress should micromanage any kind of military activity, number one. Number two, it is a mistake to tell an enemy what we will do and what we will not do in a military situation. If we tell Milosevic that we are not going to send any ground troops to the area, Milosevic then only has to focus on the air war. He can put all of his attention on the air war. If we do not give him any direct answer one way or the other on ground troops or anything else, then he has got to plan for all kinds of contingencies, he has got to make his preparations very diverse, and it is not easy for him to do that. It is easy for him to focus just on the air war. So I think we would make a big mistake by adopting this amendment.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.