C. Young

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I thank the chairman very much. I would like to say, Mr. Speaker, the previous speaker said that 11 words could solve this problem and he and I both share the same goal. We want these people in uniform, their families, and the civilians that work for the Department of Defense as well as the other departments to get their paycheck, because a lot of them are not going to be able to make their mortgage payments and their car payments and their insurance payments and their credit card payments and their grocery bills. It is not fair that these innocent people are caught up in this. But I want to say in all sincerity to my distinguished friend who just spoke, there are two words that can solve this problem, and solve it today, and those two words are William Clinton. Sign that bill that provides the appropriations for the Department of Defense, that was passed by this House in a strong bipartisan vote, that was passed by the Senate in a strong bipartisan vote. President Clinton ought to sign this bill. Here is something that maybe his advisers have not told him. That nearly half of the money in the Defense appropriations bill that he wants to veto, nearly half of that money goes for salaries and housing allowances and medical care, quality of life issues for the people that serve in the military and who work as civilians for the Department of Defense. It is not all big procurement and big spending on industry. It is for the people that are ready to risk their lives to protect freedom and to protect this Nation. If there are things in the bill that the President does not like, listen to this closely, very closely. If the President thinks we funded items in this appropriations bill that he does not like, he can send us a rescission bill, or he can send us a reprogramming. He has plenty of room to work with the Congress, and we have tried to work with him in a bipartisan fashion on national defense. There is nothing in this argument about Medicare or Medicaid, tax increases or tax reductions, balanced budgets or anything else other than providing for the national defense and the quality of life for those who serve in our military. What are some of the things that the President did not ask for and he is unhappy because we included them, anyway? We gave him $647 million to pay for the contingency in Iraq that he decided to send American troops to. We provided the money to pay for that. What is wrong with that? That is up front, that is pay-as-you-go. Barracks repair. We provided money to repair barracks that are in tragic condition. He did not ask for it. We provided it, anyway. Training shortfalls because of other contingencies that the President spent money on around the world. We provided the money to replace that. Breast cancer research, we added that. He did not ask for it. But if he does not like any of these, he can send us a rescission bill. So two words, William Clinton, will solve this problem with everything relating to the national Defense Establishment.

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, in response to the gentleman just in the well, I would like to report to him without any reference to Medicare, Medicaid, school lunches, tax increases, tax cuts, or anything else, the House and the Senate, in a strong bipartisan vote, have already passed the bill, the Defense appropriations bill, that would pay the salaries of the people in our military. All we need is a signature from the President, and that becomes law and they can go back to work and they can get paid.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the many, many expressions of concern for the safety of our American forces should they be sent to Bosnia, that have been expressed by so many of our colleagues here today. None of us can forget, will ever forget what happened to the American Marines in Beirut with more than 200 American Marines who were there as peacekeepers were murdered in their barracks. None of us will forget Somalia, where Americans went there on an honorable mission, in a humanitarian mission, but mission creep took us from that successful humanitarian mission to the disaster that became so-called peacekeeping when 18 American soldiers were gunned down in the streets of Mogadishu and their bodies dragged through the streets. They were there as peacekeepers. The point that I would like to make, though, Mr. Speaker, is that on those missions and especially in the Somalia mission, I recall distinctly the fight that we had here in the House to get those who supported the mission creep to a peacekeeping mission refused to stand and vote for the appropriation to pay for it. In the case of Bosnia, we have been told, we started out that the cost was going to be about a billion dollars. Then it went up to $1.2 billion, then up to $1.5 billion, now up to $2 billion. Now we are talking possibly about as much as $3 billion. Again the point, where is the money coming from? The President's spokesman today at the White House, when asked about the defense appropriations bill that this House and Senate passed yesterday, indicated that the President would find it difficult to sign because maybe it included too much money. But where else would the President get the $2 billion to $3 billion to finance the deployment to Bosnia? He had better think twice about vetoing this defense appropriations bill because if it does not get signed, if it comes back here and should this resolution not pass today, I can almost assure you that the House will force us to put this same kind of binding language in the next defense appropriations bill. I have an idea that the President and the administration should take the advice of this Congress, the advice of Secretary Perry and General Shalikashvili, and they should sign a good defense appropriations bill that will be sent to them shortly.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, when we get to the debate on the bill, we will be happy to address that very specifically. We ought to go ahead and get this rule passed so we can get to the real debate on what is right for the national defense.

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, the previous speaker mentioned the great investments that we have. We have a lot of great investments. The greatest investment that we make in our national defense are the young Americans, men and women, who wear the uniform, who train to defend this country or our national interests. And one reason that our defense costs are so high is we have an all-volunteer service. We do not have a draft or a conscripted army or military like the other nations that the gentleman is referring to. In fact, of this $240 billion bill, half of it, nearly half, $120 billion-plus, goes to pay salaries, allowances, and medical care for those young Americans who are prepared at a moment's notice to be deployed wherever the President of the United States might choose to deploy them, and the salaries of the DOD civilian workforce. So, yes, our costs are higher, because we do not have a draft. We have an all-volunteer military, and we ought not to make those people live like paupers. There are too many of them today who are married and have families that have to rely on food stamps to get by, and that is not right.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, yesterday we passed a Treasury- Postal conference report on the appropriations bill, and the language that the gentlewoman objects to today was the identical language that was in that bill yesterday, which she voted for. I just think that consistency does have some value.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman for yielding me this time. I did not intend to be involved in the debate on the rule, because that is not what this debate is even about. This is a good rule, a bipartisan rule. We ought to just go ahead and expedite the rule and get to the conference report. But I really cannot leave unchallenged the issue that we reduced readiness. That is just totally erroneous. We reduced some of the operations and maintenance accounts. That is correct. In fact, we reduced these particular accounts by about $1.7 billion. Let me tell you where we reduced. Then I want to tell you where we added back for readiness. We reduced the technology reinvestment program. It may be a good program, but it should not necessarily be funded by the Department of Defense. That is one of the reductions that this previous speaker talked about. We reduced consultants and research centers by $90 million. You know, they refer to them as Beltway Bandits sometimes. We cut that. The Nunn-Lugar funding to convert Soviet, former Soviet, military industries, well, our understanding is that a lot of that conversion went to a new type of Russian military industry. So we took the money out of that. The U.N. peacekeeping assessment, $65 million; we should pay our peacekeeping assessments, but it should not come out of this bill. It ought to come out of the State Department bill or it ought to come out of the foreign aid bill, but not the Defense bill. Another large reduction, $129 million for travel, support aircraft operations. We made these reductions because of Members on that side of the aisle who asked us to do it, and we agreed to those amendments. So, yes, we did make those kinds of reductions. What did we add back for real readiness and quality-of-life issues for our personnel? We added over $2 billion. The gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] does not like me to repeat this, but I will. We did provide money for the pay raise for the members of the military. We added funds for housing allowances for members of the military. We added $322 million to upgrade barracks facilities that are a tragedy. People who might have to go to war and risk their lives should not have to live like that. We added $170 million for training shortfalls, training moneys that had been borrowed in advance for other contingency operations that had not been approved by Congress, incidentally. We created a new initiative that even the President thinks is a good idea now, paying for the known contingency operations as we go, to deny access to the air of Saddam Hussein's air forces and to provide comfort for those non-Saddam supporters in Iraq. We added $647 million for that because that contingency is ongoing, and we ought to pay for it as we go. We ought to be up front and be honest. So the truth is, yes, we did reduce the operations and maintenance accounts on one hand but we increased them by adding real readiness and quality-of-life on the other hand, and I think that, as we discuss these issues, we really ought to be accurate, and I will do my very best and I know my colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Murtha], will, to make sure the debate remains as accurate as possible.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on the further conference report on the bill H.R. 2126 and that I may include extraneous and tabular matter.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I say to my friend we did not reduce this part of Nunn-Lugar; the part dealing with nuclear destruction and chemical destruction, we did not reduce that part of that program. First, let me suggest, Mr. Speaker, regarding the motion offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] to recommit, there will be no debate. I would at this point ask, as the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Murtha] has already done, that we handily defeat that motion to recommit and get on with getting this bill passed. The last few days I have heard a lot of criticism that we cannot get appropriations bills passed. That is what we are trying to do today. We are trying to get a good bipartisan appropriations bill passed to provide for the defense of our Nation. There are some things in here that are not definitely related to national defense specifically that have been complained about, but let me tell you about an example of one. One thing the Defense Department does not want in this bill is breast cancer research. But we have a lot of women in the military, and we have a lot of men in the military who have wives and daughters, and we provide an adequate sum to accelerate the breast cancer research and treatment program essential to every woman in America because no woman is exempt from breast cancer. We try to do our share. Other appropriations bills in the last decade have increased every year, increased, except for one. The legislation providing for funding for our national defense has gone down every year for the last 10 years, and, my friends, this year this bill is less than it was last year by $400 million. So this is the 11th year in a row that we have reduced spending on national defense. But in this bill we are getting a lot more for the defense dollars than we have gotten in a long time. I might say this, that at the same time that we are reducing our spending for national defense, we have a commander in chief who is deploying U.S. troops around the globe anytime that he wants to and, for the most part, without coming to Congress and getting the approval of the Congress. In fact, at the beginning of this year we had to appropriate over $2 billion to pay for those contingencies that had not been planned for. One of the big arguments has been we did things in here the Pentagon did not ask for. The gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] had a chart I have seen so many times. I have a scroll here the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] says he memorized. This scroll reaches across the well. It talks about minor items nobody ever identified, because they are not politically attractive, but minor items that could keep the war effort or defense effort from moving if called upon to do so. So we take care of a lot of those things. But this one, I just brought this one along to show you. Our President believes we are not doing enough for national defense. You remember this picture. President Clinton said last December he wants more in military spending over the next 6 years. He said even in an era when the public wants a leaner Government, the people of this country expect us to do right by our men and women in uniform. This is exactly what we are doing in this bill: Taking care of the men and women in uniform. The question has been raised so many times the Pentagon does not want many of the things in this bill. Well, on Veterans Day, believe it or not, November 11, this headline appeared, and this story in the Washington Post, ``Pentagon Leaders Urge Accelerated 50 Percent Boost in Procurement.'' Now, these are not contractors. These are not industry people. These are not defense politicians. These are the guys [[Page H 13063]] that fought the war in Desert Storm. These are the people that fought the war in Vietnam, and the actions in Panama and Grenada and places like that. What do they say? The uniformed leaders of the Armed Forces, worried about aging weapons and equipment, after a decade of declining procurement, have recommended a roughly 50-percent jump in spending on purchases over the next 2 years. The people that have to fight the wars, the ones that we count on to defend this Nation, preserve our security and our freedom and our independence, they say that the 10- year decline in providing for the national defense has got to change. That is what your war-fighting Pentagon says we ought to be doing. Mr. Speaker, I ask for a ``no'' vote on the motion to recommit and a strong ``yes'' vote on the conference report.

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate all of those who participated in the debate. It has been a good debate. I disagree with some of the arguments that I heard from one side or the other, and I know in the heat of debate sometimes we sometimes misspeak unintentionally. The gentleman who just spoke said that we had cut the effort to denuclearize the former Soviet Union. Not so. The nuclear arms reduction program, chemical weapons destruction, those programs were fully funded.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Metcalf]. (Mr. METCALF asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Weldon], a member of the Committee on National Security. (Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Buyer].

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Bateman]. (Mr. BATEMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bonilla], another distinguished member of the subcommittee.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Speaker, during most of the debate today, we have actually spent more time talking about subjects and matters that are extraneous to national defense items that really have nothing to do with national defense. A lot of those extraneous matters, although they are extremely important, should be done in other legislative bills or appropriations bills, or they could be cone by the States, or they could actually be done maybe in some cases by the cities and the counties. Mr. Speaker, if there is one thing that this Congress and this President have a responsibility to do that no State can do, that no city or county can do, that is to provide for the defense of this Nation and for our national interests wherever they might be. We are talking about preparing kids in uniform who have volunteered to serve in the military, preparing them to accomplish whatever mission they might be assigned to, and do it effectively, and at the same time give themselves some protection while they are doing it. So only the Federal Government can do this. The other extraneous materials should not even be a discussion or part of the discussion on the defense appropriations bill. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] keeps bringing that same chart up about how much the Americans spend versus how much somebody else spends. I am going to repeat something again a little bit differently than I did the first time. Some years ago, a lot of our messages were delivered in music and in songs and in poetry. There was a song where the key phrase went, ``and the soldiers get paid $21 a day, once a month.'' How many are old enough to remember that? Twenty-one dollars a day once a month. Well, since that time, we have begun to pay our soldiers considerably more, no enough, but a whole lot more than $21 a day once a month. However, the other nations to whom the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] compares us in our spending, they are still paying $21 a day once a month, because they are conscripts. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Nethercutt], a member of the subcommittee.

Mr YOUNG of Florida

Mr YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California [Mr. Cunningham] who himself is an ace fighter pilot.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, we are presenting a good national defense appropriations bill today. I would say that it did not come easy. It is the work product of a lot of hours on the part of a lot of very serious and credible Members of this Congress in making this bill come together. We had some 1,700 differences between our bill and the bill passed by the other body, and we were able to resolve all of those without too much difficulty, with one exception that I will mention in just a minute. But I want to call attention to the members of the subcommittee who worked so diligently in making this possible today. I will mention the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. McDade], the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livinsgton], the gentleman from California [Mr. Lewis], the gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Skeen], the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hobson], the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bonilla], the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Nethercutt], the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Istook], and the very distinguished ranking member and former chairman of this subcommittee, who has been a tremendous partner in a bipartisan effort all the way through, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Murtha], and the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks], the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Wilson], the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Hefner], the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Sabo], and the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey], as the ranking member on the full committee who serves ex-officio on our subcommittee. We had a lot of difficult decisions to make, and we did that, and to be as brief as I can, Mr. Speaker, this bill, this conference report, is very much similar to the conference report we presented about 7 weeks ago. But there are two differences I would like to call to your attention. One is the Army is having difficulty meeting the end strength that was directed to them, and if we did not provide the additional money for the Army end strength issue, they would have had to release members of the Army without advanced notice and just put them on the street. So we provided the funding necessary to have the Army meet its end strength targets gradually. We did not add any new money to the bill. We just took the money out of one account and put it into the other account. So we took care of that problem for today. The big issue and the one that caused us difficulty on the floor the last time this bill was before us was the language dealing with abortion. Now yesterday, when the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill was adopted, it included certain language dealing with abortion. After that passed the House, we went back to our conference and adopted the identical language, and so the language [[Page H 13052]] dealing with abortion in this conference report today is the same as it was. That language, Mr. Speaker, in this conference report today, is identical to that which we passed yesterday on a vote of 374 to 52, and so we believe that the major controversies have been resolved now and we can move expeditiously to deal with this bill. I might say just briefly, Mr. Speaker, that this has been a bipartisan effort. This legislation provides funding for the defense of our Nation and our national interests. Almost half the money in this bill goes to pay the salaries and the allowances, housing, medical care, et cetera, for those who serve in our military in uniform who are trained and prepared to defend this Nation's interests wherever they might be. Today, while the world looks at Bosnia and is wondering what is going to happen, the President of the United States has suggested that he intends to send some 20,000 Americans to Bosnia. Those young people need to be taken care of properly, and nearly half of the money in this bill goes to pay their salaries, their housing allowances, medical care, and things of this nature. This has always been a bipartisan effort to provide for national defense. It is a little unfortunate that this effort has been allowed to become embroiled in the larger issues of the budget reconciliation, the budget bills, the continuing resolutions. It does not really belong there, because defense properly should be strictly nonpolitical, it should be bipartisan in nature. The bill we present today is just that. It is nonpolitical, it is bipartisan, and it addresses the needs, as we see it, that our national defense establishment needs to be prepared for whatever contingency there might be. At this point I would like to submit for the Record tables summarizing the conference agreement. [[Page H 13053]] TH16NO95.000 [[Page H 13054]] TH16NO95.001 [[Page H 13055]] TH16NO95.002 [[Page H 13056]]

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 271, I call up the conference report on the bill (H.R. 2126), making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1996, and for other purposes.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I was not recorded on rollcalls 734 and 745. Had I been recorded, I would have voted ``yes'' in both cases. Mr. Speaker, due to a malfunction of the voting system, I was not recorded October 24, 1995, on rollcall vote 734. This was the third in a series of votes that evening, and although I was recorded on the first two votes, my vote was not recorded on the third vote. Had I been properly recorded, my vote was ``yes'' in support of S. 1322, legislation providing for the relocation of the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. As one who has signed letters to the President and Secretary of State in support of the relocation of the Embassy, I would request unanimous consent that my statement appear in the permanent Record immediately following the vote on S. 1322. Mr. Speaker, I was inadvertently delayed Monday evening, October 30, 1995, during the consideration of House Resolution 247, expressing the concern of the House about the possible deployment of American troops in Bosnia. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes'' on rollcall No. 745 in support of this resolution.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion.