[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 11 (Tuesday, February 8, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 8, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                            DEFENSE SPENDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Kyl] is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. KYL. Madam Speaker, I also express my disappointment that we were 
not able to have the debate this evening, but for all of those who have 
been expecting it, we would ask that they consult us for the time when 
we can reschedule, and I appreciate the gentleman's willingness to 
moderate the debate this evening.
  We thought we would take a few minutes, the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania [Mr. Weldon] and I, and discuss the issue since we are 
both here and we are ready to at least lay some of the groundwork for 
that debate, when it occurs, and particularly to talk about this 
important issue as the President has now laid his budget before us. We 
can begin to analyze it both for its general purpose and how it may 
affect the debate.
  So we would like to take a few minutes here this evening. I would 
like to begin by yielding to my colleague, a member of the Armed 
Services Committee, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Weldon].
  Mr. WELDON. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding to me.
  I, too, am disappointed that we could not engage in the Oxford-style 
debate that was to take place tonight between two Members of the 
Republican Party against two Members of the Democratic Party on the 
issue of further cuts in defense spending, which was going to be the 
position of those in the majority.
  I would like to say at the outset that even though there were two 
Republicans against two Democrats on this issue, my position would have 
been at the outset that there are many, many Democrats, including most 
on the Armed Services Committee, who are, in fact, in agreement with 
the position that we would have taken that further defense cuts would 
not be in the best interest of America, our national security, and 
freedom-loving people around the world.

                              {time}  1750

  This would not have been, in my opinion, a Democrat versus Republican 
debate. It would have been a debate between those who are the majority 
in the Congress who feel that we are at the point where we cannot cut 
defense spending any further.
  I would like to start out, Madam Speaker, by just highlighting where 
we are today, because unfortunately, the perception out there across 
America is that somehow we have dramatically increased the amount of 
Federal tax dollars that are sent to Washington being spent on the 
military. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have a chart here 
that I would like to refer to, which I would be happy to share with any 
of my colleagues, or perhaps anyone nationally, who would like to see 
it, that shows defense outlays as a percentage of our Gross National 
Product.
  Most industrialized nations compare their defense spending or other 
areas of spending as a percentage of their gross national product, or a 
percentage of their total Federal outlays. That is what we are going to 
do here.
  In the 1960's, following the Korean war, America was at relative 
peace. We all had thought at that point in time there would be no major 
war, things were stabilizing, and we could revert back to a peacetime 
economy and a peacetime scenario. During John Kennedy's tenure in the 
early and mid-1960's, we were spending 9.1 percent of our Gross 
National Product on the military, and roughly 51 cents of every Federal 
dollar that was sent to Washington was spent to support our national 
military and our national defense.
  If we look at where we are today, as we have seen defense spending 
decline, this year's defense budget will see us spend roughly 3 percent 
of our Gross National Product on the military, and about 17 cents of 
every dollar on the military. So whichever mechanism we use to compare 
defense spending, it has actually been cut dramatically. In fact, the 
only area of Federal spending receiving such massive cuts is in fact 
our defense budget.
  It was kind of ironic when President Clinton stood in this very room 
just several weeks ago and slammed his fist on the table and said ``no 
more defense cuts.'' I would like to believe our President, but if we 
look at what he requested for this next fiscal year, and the following 
2 years, it is actually less money in each of those years than what we 
are spending today. In my book, and in most of our books, that is a 
cut, so we continue to see requests to decrease military spending.
  In fact, if we look at the President's 5-year budget plan, which many 
of us opposed because of this condition, $128 billion of cuts over 5 
years would be in the defense area, many of them unspecified. One of 
our biggest problems this year is going to be to deliver on the second 
year of the 5-year defense cuts that President Clinton used to base his 
budget numbers on. In fact, there are many, including former Secretary 
Aspin, in his bottom-up review, who have already said we need to 
increase spending just to be able to keep up with our military needs 
this year.
  What is most troubling about the defense numbers is not so much that 
we should pull a number out of the air, because that is not the way we 
should decide the level of defense spending. In fact, many of us on the 
Committee on Armed Services are outraged because that is how the 
President evidently arrived at the $128 billion number.
  I say that using two quotes, one from Senator Sam Nunn, who, when the 
original budget numbers were given last year, said that these budget 
cuts were pulled out of the air. They were not based on some analysis 
of the threat to America's existence and our facilities around the 
world, they were simply pulled out of the air by a pencil-pushing 
budget director over at the White House.
  In fact, just today we had a briefing, a closed intelligence 
briefing, for the Committee on Foreign Affairs by Dr. Joseph Nye, 
chairman of the National Intelligence Council, and each of the various 
subheads who were responsible for gathering all of the intelligence on 
which we can base the threat to Amercia and our security around the 
world.
  Under a direct question from me, Dr. Nye responded that not even he 
had been consulted by President Clinton nor the people who made that 
decision as to what our budget level should be for the next 5 years.
  What troubled me the most is that we are making these decisions on 
our budget numbers from this year through the next 5 years largely 
based on numbers pulled out of the air, not on a threat assessment, not 
on the reality of the world conditions, not on the potential conflict 
that could come about from the former Soviet republics, not on the 
situation in the Middle East, not on the potential for North Korea 
using its nuclear technology, not on the situation involving Pakistan 
and India, and other nations in that part of the world, but simply we 
are basing this on a number pulled out of the air to fit with the 
President's 5-year budget plan. That really is scary, and it has many 
of us concerned.
  Not only is defense being cut, as proposed by President Clinton, by 
$128 billion, but the people of America have to understand that 
Congress is also having its way in cutting defense even further. The 
defense appropriations and authorization bills that we have passed in 
the last session of Congress were loaded down with programs that have 
nothing to do with national security. Funding a $40 million hospital in 
Denver, CO, was one of the items that many of us tried to question but 
could not get a separate vote on, or funding special grants to colleges 
that have nothing to do with defense. All were stuck in the defense 
bill.
  In fact, it was Senator John McCain who publicly has said that in 
last year's defense appropriation bill, there were $4 billion of 
unauthorized appropriations, items that found their way in, in many 
cases having nothing to do with our national security.
  When we talk about the defense cuts we are making, we have to add in 
that a major or a substantial portion of the defense appropriation does 
not take into consideration the fact that other programs are put in 
there by Members of Congress that have nothing to do with our strategic 
interest or our national security.
  On top of that, the President has requested approximately $20 billion 
over 5 years for what he calls defense conversion, and in fact, when 
one looks at that conversion number, they find out that many of those 
conversion items have been targeted or earmarked for certain districts 
or for certain companies or for certain Members, and are not based upon 
a real concerted effort to find and develop dual use technologies and 
new emerging technologies from work that we have done in the military.
  Madam Speaker, the position that I would have taken if the debate 
were in fact held tonight is that we must base our defense numbers on 
the threat that is there and evident to the people of America around 
the world, and it must be based on scientific evidence that we then 
discuss and analyze, and systems that are needed to maintain our 
national security.
  It should not be based on some artificial number pulled in by some 
budget pencil-pusher down at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
  Second, if we are looking at ways that we can improve our defense 
spending, we in this Congress have got to stop using the defense budget 
and the defense spending process as a cash cow, where we can add in all 
these other programs that have nothing to do with our national 
security.
  Madam Speaker, I think we must also remember if there is one thing we 
could attribute to the downfall of communism in the Soviet Union, it is 
the work and effort of Ronald Reagan, followed by George Bush, in 
building up a strong military.
  It was just recently, as a matter of fact, it was last March that 
Aleksandr Bessmertnykh, in a conference held here in Washington, said 
that SDI and the military posture of this country under Ronald Reagan 
were the reasons why the Soviet system eventually had to back off, and 
why Gorbachev had to back off, because they could not continue to go up 
against America on security issues.
  No nation has ever been threatened because it was too strong. Our 
concern is that as we move through the remaining years of the Clinton 
administration, that we have to be careful that we not short change our 
military and end up with a hollow force structure, as we did in the 
1970's, which just invites despots and leaders around the world to take 
on our allies and attempt to involve our allies in conflicts that could 
lead to a world escalation or a world war.
  The threat is still there, the danger is still there. One classified 
briefing that was held several weeks ago, one of my colleagues said 
that at this point in time there were over 60 hostile actions taking 
place today between countries and between people and ethnic groups, any 
one of which could involve America, so this notion that somehow things 
are all rosy and we have no more concern for national security is just 
totally untrue.
  Before I yield back to my friend and colleague, the gentleman from 
Arizona, John Kyl, I know he is going to talk about the need for 
nuclear deterrents and for ballistic missile systems to deal with the 
threat they pose, which I have not even talked about, which are also 
major concerns of the American people.
  We have to understand that as the debate unfolds on the President's 
budget, this year and in the out-years, we have to deal on facts and 
reality, not on perceptions. What the President did in this room, in 
the State of the Union, in pounding his fist, was nothing but a 
perception that he is not going to let defense be cut any more. That is 
just not what is happening. It is not borne out by the facts and it is 
not borne out by the budget numbers contained in the document that I 
sent up here yesterday.
  I urge the American people and our colleagues to be vigilant as this 
process unfolds.

                              {time}  1800

  Mr. KYL. Madam Speaker, I would ask my colleague if he would just 
take another minute to explain the other chart that is on the easel 
behind the one that he has talked about, the color chart which I think 
graphically demonstrates another point, and that is the comparison 
between defense spending and the domestic spending that has increased 
over the years, and I yield to my colleague for that purpose.
  Mr. WELDON. I thank my colleague for again yielding. I am happy to 
explain this very vivid chart which I think describes what is again a 
misconception. The people of America have again been to some extent 
hoodwinked into thinking that all of our Federal dollars have gone for 
the military and we have cut domestic discretionary spending and 
mandatory spending dramatically. Nothing could be further from the 
truth.
  If you look at this chart which provides cumulative real changes from 
fiscal year 1990 through fiscal year 1999 you see almost a 40-percent 
increase in mandatory spending programs, the entitlement programs, you 
see a 12-percent increase in domestic discretionary spending, and yet 
you see a 35-percent decrease in defense outlays, an actual decrease. 
The only area of the budget that we have cut in the last several years 
and are proposing to cut in the future are in fact national security 
and defense.
  This President, even in cutting his Federal workers, and he counts 
that heavily, what he does not tell the American people is the bulk of 
those workers are going to be Pentagon workers, they are going to be 
the people who work for the military, the young people who committed 
their lives and their careers to defending this country. What he also 
does not tell the American people is, looking at two studies done, one 
by the Office of Technology Assessment and the other done by the 
Congressional Budget Office, using the numbers that they had available 
for the original Clinton 5-year cuts in defense, the estimates of job 
losses in America over the next 5 years will range between 1.2 and 2.8 
million workers who will lose their jobs. These are both uniformed 
personnel at the Pentagon and people who work for defense contractors 
and the defense industrial base. There are only 5.5 million Americans 
who work in the defense industry right now today, and what we are 
talking about is seeing up to one-half of those people, one out of 
every two workers get a pink slip. And the problem is we have no place 
to put them. We have no jobs that can take their skills and their 
knowledge and reemploy them, and that is what is so outrageous, that we 
are doing this in a vacuum. Not that we should keep the defense budget 
high just to employ people, but there has to be some thought process 
given to where these people are going to go to work. That has not 
happened and it does not exist today, and all across America tens of 
thousands of husbands and wives are losing their jobs and do not know 
what to do because of the drastic downsizing that is currently 
occurring with our military, while at the same time, by the way, we are 
increasing dramatically domestic spending.
  Mr. KYL. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the eloquent statement by my 
colleague from Pennsylvania, Kurt Weldon, who serves on the Armed 
Services Committee, and who, as he indicated, participated in a hearing 
just this morning, an intelligence hearing describing the threat that 
is posed to us around the world and from the intelligence point of view 
the kinds of things we are going to have to do to meet that threat.
  To just play for a moment on one of the last points made by my 
colleague, and these are statistics that I borrowed, by the way, from 
the former Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney, who points out the fact 
that it takes 9 years to build a modern aircraft carrier from 
authorization to deployment. It takes about 25 years to train an 
officer capable of commanding a modern armor division in combat, and it 
takes 13 years before a new Navy aircraft can be deployed. So Madam 
Speaker, it obviously is the case that you cannot draw down a force and 
rebuild it overnight. And my colleague from Pennsylvania, in pointing 
out the number of people both in the civilian jobs and in the military 
who are being given the pink slip, as he put it, or are going to be out 
of this process, our military industrial base will be gravely 
undermined, and yet because of the severe time periods here that it 
takes to rebuild the forces, we would not be able to respond quickly to 
a crisis, but rather would have to take a long time, 9 years, for 
example, to build a modern aircraft carrier, and in the case of 
training an officer, 25 years. So we are talking about a very serious 
proposition when we talk about a rapid build-down, quite an oxymoron 
that, build-down, but a very serious proposition when we consider the 
time constraints and then rebuilding that force back up.

  So to restate some of the statistics that demonstrate the fact that 
we are actually significantly cutting defense spending now, whether 
measured as a percent of gross domestic product or as a percent of the 
Federal budget, here are the quick numbers again: Defense spending has 
dropped since 1985 from 27 percent of the Federal budget to less than 
17 percent, which by the way, Madam Speaker, is the lowest share of the 
Federal budget since before Pearl Harbor. Defense spending has dropped 
to just 3.9 percent of the gross domestic product versus 11.9 percent 
at the time of the Korean war, 9.1 percent during the Vietnam war, and 
6.3 percent during the height of the Reagan buildup. And finally, since 
1950, as my colleague pointed out, entitlement programs have grown from 
18 percent of the Federal budget to over 50 percent, and have become 
the largest single sector of U.S. Government spending, while defense, 
of course, has gone from about 50 percent down to less than 17 percent.
  So the first point that I think we would have made had this debate 
occurred this evening is that we have already cut defense spending 
significantly. And as the President said, whatever else you might think 
about his plans for cuts over the next 5 years, as he said from that 
podium a couple of weeks ago, we cannot cut defense spending any 
further.
  Now why is that so? We are not talking about abstract numbers here 
or, as my colleague pointed out, just to keep people employed. We are 
talking about the need for a strong defense in order to maintain world 
peace.
  Madam Speaker, we talk a lot about our crime problem, and one of the 
things we want to do about that is to put more cops on the beat. And as 
a matter of fact, the President proposed spending a lot of money to put 
more cops on the beat. Why do we do that? Why do we want to have more 
cops on the beat? To deter crime. The more cops you have on the beat, 
the less crime you are going to have committed on the streets, and the 
same thing is true internationally. As long as the United States 
maintains a strong overwhelming presence, and we can back up our 
foreign policy decisions whatever they may be, other people in the 
world are not going to mess with us. They understand what happens with 
people who argue militarily with the United States of America.
  But as soon as our defense begins to deteriorate, as it did during 
the 1970's, as soon as others believe that they can get away with 
trouble around the world, then you see these hot spots that my 
colleague pointed out begin to crop up. And nations test our will, and 
when they find that will wanting, and when they find us unable to meet 
threats all over the globe, then is when you see trouble begin.
  I suspect that was one of the things that was going through the mind 
of Saddam Hussein. Who could have predicted that he would be the 
aggressor against Kuwait, but very quickly that threat developed, I 
think, because among other things, he did not think we would respond. I 
think he was the most surprised person in the world when he saw the 
resolve of President George Bush and eventually the Members of this 
body, Madam Speaker, who agreed to support the President when he said 
we are going to stop that aggression, we are going to kick Saddam out 
of Kuwait and take away his capability to threaten his neighbors in the 
future.
  But we were able to do that. Why? Because, the United States, as 
shown on an earlier chart, during the first part of the 1990's built up 
our forces to the best, the strongest, the most capable military force 
the world has ever known. It was not only strong from a personnel point 
of view and from the point of view that we had the best trained people, 
but also because they were the best equipped with the most technically 
advanced weapons ever. And what was one of the results of that, in 
addition to the fact that we were able to repulse an aggressor, kick 
him out of where he had gone and ensure that the could not threaten his 
neighbors for a long time to come? One of the results of that kind of 
capability was that this was all accomplished with the lowest rate of 
casualties of any comparable military conflict in the history of the 
world.
  That is something that we tend to forget, Madam Speaker. One reason 
that we want to put money into defense, to train people well and to 
have the right kind of equipment is because we know that then when we 
send our young people into harm's way they will do our will at minimum 
risk to themselves, and to every mother and father, to every one of us 
who vote to put them in harm's way, nothing could be more important 
than making sure that they can do their job with the least risk of harm 
to themselves.
  When we play this game of marginal benefits, of trying to see how 
close to the line we can get before somebody attacks us, we not only 
invite that kind of trouble around the world, but we also guarantee 
when we do have to respond that young men and women, Americans in 
uniform will die needlessly, and there will be needless casualties. We 
have history to back us up in this respect. Dick Cheney used to talk 
about World War II when we had such a dramatic falling off of the 
military budget and the end strength, and we ended up in Korea with a 
lot of lives lost unnecessarily because we had not learned the lessons 
of the past. So there are important lessons here to be learned 
historically.
  Let us talk a little bit about the threats before we wind up this 
evening. We heard testimony today, as I said, about threats around the 
world. It is interesting that Jane's Defense Weekly reports there are a 
total of 73 flashpoints worldwide today, some not presenting 
significant threats to world peace, but certainly some that do.

                              {time}  1810

  If you just look about where some of these things are, where some of 
these conflicts are, you can see that there are potential flashpoints 
that could very easily involve not just the United States but literally 
the world.
  One that tends to be forgotten about even though it is very much in 
the news today is the Balkan crisis, that which spawned World War I. We 
tend to think of the trouble in Bosnia today as demanding a response 
because of the shelling of Sarajevo. What we tend to forget about is 
the fact that you have a very tense situation on the border between 
Serbia and Macedonia, that if there should be a conflict there or in 
Kosovo, in the Kosovo region, you could easily involve countries like 
Greece and Turkey which are building up at a fairly significant rate, 
Madam Speaker, and before long you could bring in a lot of other 
countries in the world into a very bad situation.
  Mr. WELDON. Madam Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I just think 
it is appropriate at this point as the gentleman is talking about the 
Balkans and the potential conflict there that here we have an 
administration that is downsizing the military dramatically, and we 
were going to have a discussion about further downsizing further even 
beyond what President Clinton is asking for which I think would be 
outrageous, but the same administration is in fact deploying our troops 
to more of the hot spots around the world, whether it be Macedonia or 
surrounding Haiti or the promise of 25,000 troops into the Balkans or 
whether it is the troops that we have over in Somalia that we withdrew 
and then put back in again because we were embarrassed because we had 
taken them out too quickly; we have troops literally in more places 
today than at any point in time in recent years and at a time when we 
are cutting back the military.
  What does this mean? When I was in Somalia 1 year ago almost to this 
very day in Mogadishu with the appropriators, we talked to some young 
Marines at a base camp in Baidoa, and they said, ``You know, 
Congressman, our biggest concern is that for three of the last four 
holiday seasons we have been deployed. We go from one operation to 
another. We have no time to regroup. We have no time to go see our 
families. We have no time to get ourselves together. We are constantly 
being deployed from training exercise to mission to commitment.''
  What we have to understand in this body and what this administration 
has to understand is that it is not just saying cut defense, because 
you are talking about a direct impact on people's lives, young men and 
young women, and what really kind of scares me, and it ties in with the 
gentleman's point about the potential involved in the Balkans, is we 
cannot keep doing both things. Some Members of this body have done 
that, they have voted for us to stay in Somalia longer than we should 
be, and we should have been out of there 6 months ago, and they want us 
to deploy troops to Haiti, but they do not want to pay for adequate 
support for our military to provide those services. Those two things 
just cannot continue.
  Mr. KYLE. The gentleman makes a very valid point.
  We have an all-volunteer service. We rely upon people to join the 
service. When they find that they are going to be deployed over and 
over again without that period of R&R, it certainly diminishes 
their incentive to continue to serve and for others to decide to serve.

  To just expand on the point that the gentleman made, the United 
States has used military force more than 240 times since 1945, and well 
over 80 percent of those uses of force had nothing to do with the 
U.S.S.R. or any Warsaw Pact country. So, Madam Speaker, although the 
cold war is over, we found historically, and certainly today, that much 
of the conflict around the world or the potential flashpoints do not 
involve anything approximating the cold war, but the kind of ethnic 
violence and other kinds of long-simmering disputes that could well 
swell into a more significant kind of crisis.
  One of the comments that was made today in the hearings that the 
gentleman referred to by Dr. Joseph Nye, who is chairman of the 
National Intelligence Council, is this, that the problems that come 
along as surprises are quite considerable. That is a direct quotation 
from his testimony. His point being that you never know for sure where 
the next conflict is going to be.
  I think that it is interesting that well over 90 percent of American 
uses of force between 1945 and 1993, and let me repeat that, between 
1945 and 1993, well over 90 percent of the American uses of force were 
not included on the scenarios used for planning U.S. Forces the year 
before, and well over 90 percent involved less than 3 months of 
strategic warning. That is a very interesting statistic.
  In fact, the uses of force for which the United States strategic 
planners did not shape force plans or have strategic warning included 
Korea, the Berlin Wall, the Cuban missile crisis, Vietnam, Grenada, 
Panama, as well as the gulf war, Somalia, and Bosnia. So history shows 
us in very graphic terms that you cannot always predict where the next 
conflict will be.
  I mentioned the Baltics. How about the Korean Peninsula? Here you 
have a tinderbox situation that could easily erupt into a major 
conflagration, and, of course, as my colleague pointed out earlier, if 
we had a better strategic defense system, a ballistic missile defense, 
we would not have near the crisis there that we do, but because we do 
not have the kind of missile defense system deployed which could 
obviate the threat from North Korean missiles, we are faced with a very 
serious potential threat.
  We have China, which is rearming itself at an alarming rate, and an 
economy growing also at an alarming rate, I should not say alarming, 
but at a most impressive rate. The combined factors could certainly 
suggest that in 10 years or so you could have a potential threat there 
if the leadership in China should change.
  The same thing is true about the leadership of Russia. Today we do 
not feel threatened by Russia, but certainly missiles, 27,000 warheads 
of nuclear material, pose a very serious threat should the leadership 
of those countries be changed and should they be redirected at the 
United States or our allies.
  This is not even to mention the Middle East with Iraq and Iran, 
certainly Iraq wanting to cause more trouble, and Iran causing 
terrorism problems around the globe and on and on and on.
  Madam Speaker, the point is this, that we know there are dangerous 
situations, that the world is still a dangerous place. We know the most 
serious conflicts that have arisen we did not have adequate warning of. 
We know just as sure as we are standing here that there is going to be 
conflict in the world. We know that before the end of this century we 
are going to need to deploy our forces in some way in harm's way, and 
yet we have folks in this country who would continue to denude the 
military of the manpower, the technology, the ability to meet these 
kinds of threats. I will simply allude to, and not quote from, a report 
done in July of 1993 by my colleague from Arizona, a member of the 
Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator John McCain, the title of 
which is ``Going Hollow, the Warnings of Our Chiefs of Staff.'' It is 
replete of page after page after page of examples of our military 
forces now facing a hollow-force situation because of the inability to 
fund and afford repairs, equipment replacements the kinds of things 
necessary for training and readiness, aircraft parts, shipbuilding, 
maintenance, on and on and on. That is the kind of hollow force that 
was created during the 1970's which occasioned the need for the kind of 
buildup done at the beginning of the 1980's.

  Madam Speaker, I think without going into a lot of detail, the points 
that we have established here tonight, and we certainly want to debate 
when we have the opportunity next time are that we have already cut 
defense significantly, that compared with other spending, defense has 
become a very small part of our budget, that there are still many 
threats in the world, the world remains a dangerous place, and that, as 
a matter of fact, we cannot predict where the next conflict will arise. 
We know we have to be prepared for it.
  We know that when we are strong we are able to deter aggression. We 
are able to dissuade people from engaging in bad conduct around the 
world.
  As I said, we have more cops on the beat in order to deter crime. We 
do the same thing with a strong military force, so it becomes dangerous 
to marginalize that force and invite risk, and it also creates a much 
larger threat that there will be casualties once we have to engage our 
military forces.
  Defense is a lot like insurance, I guess I would say. It is 
interesting to me that in this very body people are debating day after 
day the need for universal health insurance to insure against unknown 
and even unlikely problems with our own personal health, but we 
understand the need for that kind of insurance, and yet at the same 
time they are not willing to recognize the fact that we also need to 
have insurance against unknown and even unlikely threats against our 
interests around the world, that that insurance is our defense.
  We do not know exactly where we will need it, when we will need it, 
or what we will need. But we do understand just as sure as we are here 
we will need to have that kind of force at some point. We dare not 
reduce our ability to the point that we invite aggression or create 
unnecessary casualties with the people that we send in harm's way.
  That is why we strongly stand for the proposition, as President 
Clinton said from this Chamber a couple weeks ago, we cannot cut 
defense further.
  I look forward to the debate with our colleagues about this 
proposition when we can reschedule it and look forward to the debate 
over the authorization and appropriations bill on defense when those 
matters come before this body as well.
  Madam Speaker, that concludes my remarks.

                          ____________________