[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 53 (Thursday, May 5, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: May 5, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
BASE CLOSINGS
Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, for the last couple of weeks, there has
been a broad-range discussion in Congress, at the Pentagon, and in the
White House about putting off the 1995 round of base closure decisions
mandated by the base closure law.
I am as aware as any Member of the Senate how painful this process
is. In fact, under 1991 Base Closure Commission decisions, three major
bases closed in my State. But I am also painfully aware that in each
recent year the Congress has cut defense dramatically. Hundreds of
thousands of people are being taken out of the service. We are cutting
defense by tens of billions of dollars. We are beginning to affect our
ability to modernize our forces.
This year the President proposed that we not provide full cost-of-
living increases for our military personnel. We are not maintaining
benefits. Last year, the Congress changed the Tax Code so that when a
young military person is sent to Europe and we provide an allowance to
pay for their move, that is now taxable income.
In short, we have cut defense at a rate unprecedented since the years
immediately following World War II. We have diminished benefits for our
service personnel. We are now delaying modernization, we are affecting
readiness, and we are doing it because, in my humble opinion, we are
cutting defense by too large an amount, and we are doing it too
quickly.
I have voted against defense authorization bills for the first time
in my career in Congress because I am concerned that we are making a
bad mistake. But I do not understand how we can stand on the floor of
the Senate and cast votes to cut defense and then turn around and say
we should delay military base decisions.
If we are going to cut defense dramatically and we are unwilling to
go through with our commitment to review the mission of our military
bases, we are going to end up with a large number of military bases
that are understaffed and that are operating at much less than their
full capacity. This means we are going to eat up the resources we have,
we are going to hurt modernization, we are going to hurt readiness, and
we are going to reduce our ability to continue to recruit and retain
the finest young men and women who have ever worn the uniform of this
country.
Madam President, I want to go on record saying I am going to oppose
any effort to delay the scheduled round of military base decisions in
1995. I am acutely aware that every base in my State is going to be
looked at and every base in every other State is going to be looked at.
But we just voted for a budget that cut defense again. We are going
to be faced with an authorization bill that cuts defense again. We are
going to be looking at an appropriation bill that cuts defense again. I
am not going to vote for those things, but I know the Senate and the
House will vote for them, and I know the President will sign them.
We cannot go on cutting defense and then be unwilling to do what we
have to do to maintain a quality force. What we have to do, if we make
the decision to cut defense, is to close bases that we do not need.
Now, I am aware that there is going to be an election in 1996
following these decisions. But the point is, we are talking about
something that is vitally important to America's security. We are
talking about something that is crucial. I believe that to halt the
only smoothly coordinated part of this whole process, which has been
the base closing commission, is a tragic mistake. I am going to do
whatever I can to derail this attempt to delay it.
The Base Closing Commission is critically important because, under
the old system, we all know what happened. Every Member of Congress had
to oppose every base closure in their State or district. And so when
the decision was finally made, it was only after every obstacle that
could be thrown in its way was thrown in its way. As a last resort, a
Congressman would instruct his staff, saying, ``I'm am going out and
lie in front of the bulldozer. Be sure that the camera gets a good
angle on me. And just as I'm about to be crushed to death, run in with
tears on your face and drag me from the front of the bulldozer.''
But by setting up an orderly base review process, we have made it
possible for all of us to vote on the broad recommendations of the
commission.
I hate closing bases. My dad was a sergeant in the Army. I believe in
a strong defense. I love the people that wear the uniform of the
country. I love the communities that have supported defense. There is
almost something unfair about penalizing the very communities that
helped us win the cold war. But there is no alternative.
In my opinion, to sidetrack this nonpolitical process is a tragic
mistake.
Finally, I wanted to come on the floor today and say not everybody
agrees with all of these articles that are being written. Not everybody
agrees with the people at the White House and the people in the
Congress. I disagree. In this case, the law of the land says we are
going through with this review and I intend to oppose any effort to
derail that process.
Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator yield for just a moment?
Mr. GRAMM. I am happy to yield.
Mr. STEVENS. I did not know whether my friend from Arizona wanted to
speak.
Mr. McCAIN. Go ahead, please.
Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, I am happy to be here at the time the
Senator from Texas mentions this, because I think I am one of those who
raised the question of the 1995 round. I did so when the Appropriations
Committee was informed that approximately 10 percent of the bases that
were ordered to be closed in 1988, 1991 and 1993 have been closed. We
now are carrying on the books and are financing the operation of a
series of bases that theoretically were closed in those previous three
rounds of base closures. The reason they have not been closed is in the
process of closure environmental problems were discovered. There were
transitional problems with regard to transitioning the bases from one
place to another.
But in any event, of the literally couple of hundred bases, I guess,
we have ordered to be closed, only 10 percent or less have been closed.
The problem is, if we start into another round of 1995 and we are
asked to put up the money for that process, which is in effect putting
a lot more bases in the pipeline, we are actually running up more costs
today by the bases that were not closed than we could possibly save by
trying to close more. I am not in favor of not continuing the process
of closing bases. But if we are asked now to finance the closing of
bases in 1995, we are going to have to cut troop strength and cut
procurement to do that. Because the bases that were ordered to be
closed have not been closed, cannot be closed because of problems that
were not foreseen at the time those prior bases were ordered to be
closed.
I agree with what the Senator has said, this should not be related in
any event, in my opinion, to 1996 as far as what we are doing. We are
looking at the costs. I do not think the Senator from Texas wants us to
reduce the number of divisions down to nine divisions because we have
to order and start the process of closing some more bases that will not
be closed in their time either because these bases are still in the
pipeline. They are not being closed because of horrendous problems,
particularly in the environmental field.
I urge the Senator from Texas to look at some of those problems that
are delaying these base closures. I am not for delaying any base
closures, I am not for reversing any decisions. I just ask why should
we add more to the list when we cannot close what we have ordered to be
closed already? I think the cost of these, once you start the process
of closing--you start immediately and you have problems of relocation
of the forces there and disposal of the equipment there wherever you
order a base to be closed. Today the cost of keeping up the utilities
alone in some of these bases that were ordered to be closed in 1998 is
quite excessive.
I think we should not incur the additional expenses of additional
base closures when the result of that will be a further decline in the
troop strength, a further decline in the steaming hours and flying
hours, the operation and maintenance money, that we have to have to
maintain our readiness. I urge the Senator to study the problem with
regard to the cost of maintaining these bases until we will get the
environmental clearance to close them.
Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, let me reclaim my time and respond. First
of all, I am willing to look at any facts. I always try to enter these
debates with an open mind but I am not entering this debate with an
empty mind.
Basically, the bottom line is that our military bases do not match
the size of the force that the Congress is willing to pay for. I would
readily agree with the distinguished Senator from Alaska that in
closing military bases--it is a hard thing to do--we have run into
environmental problems. But as we continue to expand the environmental
requirements, those problems are not going to be any easier in 1997. If
anything, they are probably going to be worse.
If every business in America that had to make tough decisions simply
looked at the immediate cost of closing a facility most of them would
go bankrupt because they would conclude that in the short run it costs
money to close a plant, consolidate, or relocate. But, instead, they
try to look at the long-term benefits.
My concern--and I emphasize this--is I believe we are cutting defense
too fast. I do not think the world situation justifies what we are
doing. But if we delay this process, if we keep outmoded bases open,
then we will be forced to spend scarce defense dollars on them. We are
building down, and if I have to choose between a military with
personnel that are well equipped and well trained, or one with more
bases, I want the better equipped and trained military. If delays are a
problem, then I am willing to work with the Senator from Alaska to
smooth the process.
I am very fearful that if we stop this process we are going to end up
with the kind of builddown we had after Vietnam, where benefits, pay,
and modernization were sacrificed. All three Members on the floor at
the moment on our side of the aisle have been strong supporters of
defense. I am alarmed about the cuts that are being made. But I think
in the midst of those cuts the worst thing we can do, when we are
reducing the number of people, is not reduce the number of facilities.
We are asking for a disaster, and the longer we wait to do this, the
harder and more expensive it will be.
Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. GRAMM. Why do I not yield and let the Senator from Arizona get
the floor. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Arizona seek his own
time? There are 8 minutes remaining on the time of the Senator from
Texas.
Mr. McCAIN. I seek my own time, Madam President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
What amount of time does he seek?
Mr. McCAIN. I request 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Arizona is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. McCAIN. I understand the concerns of the Senator from Alaska. One
of the unanticipated costs--and it probably should have been an
anticipated cost of base closings--has been in the enormous
environmental challenges we have faced. There is a base I believe in
Indiana which used to be a place where ordnance was tested where no one
knows when they will be environmentally clean and closed.
I take exception to the description of the Senator from Alaska as to
what a closed base is. Because a base is not closed entirely does not
mean that all military activity has not been removed from it and all
the military personnel have left. So a large number of the bases that
the Senator from Alaska is talking about have been closed as far as the
practical aspect of it if not a technical aspect.
Also, the fact is that we have cut defense by 40 percent since 1987--
by 40 percent. It will be another 5 percent under the Clinton budget
which I have no reason to believe will be changed. In fact I have
reason to believe in light of recent actions on the part of the
Congress the cuts will be greater rather than smaller.
At the same time we have cut the base structure, the support base
structure in this country by only 15 percent. That imbalance cannot
last. That imbalance has to be addressed. Unless the Senator from
Alaska has different information than I do, I suggest we have to match
the base structure with the force itself. Otherwise we are going to pay
this bill even more heavily over time.
The environmental problems that exist at bases that are going to be
closed are not going to get better. In fact, I think some expert in the
studies of the environments at these bases would make a strong case
they are going to get worse the longer we leave these toxic things that
have been spilled and unexploded ordnance and things. They become a
worse situation rather than better over time.
The one aspect of the base closing commission concept was so the
Congress would not have to carry out its responsibilities. As the
Senator from Texas said, none of us could ever close a base so we gave
the responsibilities to a base closing commission. They carried out
their duties.
They are, according to the law, empowered to do it one more time, in
1995. And we all know that their decisions will be draconian in nature.
In fact, the initial reports we have are they will be double the
previous base closing commission's decisions. I am sure that is a very
frightening prospect. But I do not believe we can tell young men and
women that they have to leave the military, as we are telling them by
the thousands, and at the same time say we are going to keep this base
open because it is too expensive.
Today we are telling thousands of young men and women who joined the
military for a career: I am sorry, you have to leave the military
because we cannot afford to keep you in the military because we have
not enough in the defense budget. By the way, we are going to keep all
these bases open because we cannot afford to close them.
We are going to pay this bill for closing a base now or later. It is
like the commercial which I believe is for mufflers: ``Pay me now or
pay me later.''
Mr. GRAMM. Fram oil filter.
Mr. McCAIN. Is it a filter?
``Pay me now or pay me later.'' I would rather pay now and go through
this painful adjustment and start addressing these terrible
environmental problems that we found at these bases, rather than delay
it and delay it.
I will make one more comment from being around this organization,
this body, for some years. Once we agree to a delay, once we break this
chain that we have committed ourselves to by law, I have no confidence
that we will then return to a base-closing procedure that will actually
work.
I look forward to working with the Senator from Alaska and the
Senator from Texas in trying to put a brake on these draconian cuts
that we are seeing in defense spending.
On last Monday, the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Glenn], and I went down to
Norfolk, VA. We met with Navy and Marine Corps personnel, both air and
ship people. They are all very concerned. I would say to my friends:
They are deeply concerned. They are worried. Readiness is starting to
suffer already.
So I suggest that if we deviate from what we imposed on ourselves by
law, that we will suffer significant financial and, perhaps, personal
consequences in having to force more and more young men and women out
of the military than we are already.
I respect enormously the views and knowledge of my friend from
Alaska, but I suggest to him that if we are going to downsize the
military in the post-cold-war era, we have to do it in a fair and
equitable manner, with the first priority being to readiness, the
second priority being to the welfare of the men and women in the
military, and the third priority is the bases themselves.
I yield back the remainder of my time.
Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Feingold). The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I seek the floor in my own name.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, the strange thing is that the three of
us, I think, are committed to the same concept of maintaining the
strongest possible defense for the United States.
I say to my two friends that the Appropriations Committee has been
notified that studies made by the General Accounting Office and by the
Congressional Budget Office have indicated that the original estimates
of the cost of closing bases was exceedingly low. It was an estimate,
and we have now processed 1988, 1991 and 1993 bases to be closed. The
difficulty with it is the environmental costs alone are such that it is
now estimated that we will not break even in terms of the cost of
closing the bases and the savings, until the turn of the century.
The problem that we have is, we anticipated these closed bases would
be off the appropriations demand by 1996, and we find that is not the
case. If we add to the list--already we are going to have to bring
down, unless we get an increase in defense spending--we are going to
have to bring down something in order to meet the added costs of
closing these bases.
My point is that I believe in readiness so much that I believe we
have to recognize if we add to this list of bases to be closed in 1995,
if we start funding in 1995, by the turn of the century--it will be way
into the turn of the century before we break even.
We all know in defense--the Senator from Arizona just said--despite
the President's cut, there are going to be additional cuts demanded by
some people in Congress. What is happening is readiness is being
affected. We are going to have a hollow Army, hollow Air Force. We will
not be able to, once again, man our ships. We will not be able to keep
our airplanes flying. And we certainly will not have the people that we
say we have in the divisions that are there.
All I am trying to do is alert my friends: Keep an open mind where
this money is going to come from. We say, ``Well, we'll have to pay the
added cost.'' There is no place to pay the added cost from except the
limited amount we have now, and that means something has to be
decreased.
What has been decreased so far has been readiness, has been manpower,
has been the number of airplanes we are replacing, has been the number
of ships we can maintain. I think the public ought to know that if we
continue to say we are closing bases and do not close them, the effect
is reduced manpower, reduced equipment, reduced procurement and reduced
readiness. We have to keep that in mind.
If you want to decide what bases to close in 1995, go ahead and do
it. But if you try to spend money on closing them, you are going to
take it from somewhere, and that will be from a reduced level of
appropriations that is not currently enough to maintain readiness to
defend this country.
My commitment is to maintain readiness. Particularly, I call the
attention of my colleagues to the fact that we are going to double the
amount of money put into the environmental account this year. Where is
it going to come from? It is going to come from reducing the size of
some of the units that we thought we were going to have. Instead of
divisions, we are going to have brigades. Instead of brigades, we will
have battalions. Instead of a 600- or 700-ship Navy, we are going to
have a 300-ship Navy.
I have to tell you, we are the world's last superpower. I hate to be
around here in the year 2000 when the world needs a superpower, because
we are not going to be one if we keep spending the money for the
process of closing, but we do not get them closed.
I predict the bases ordered to be closed in 1988 will not be closed
until 1998. Those ordered to be closed in 1991 will not be closed until
2001. That is about the delay. It is about a 10-year delay.
I agree, they are not maintained at the same level they were before
the base-closure order, but there are still people there to protect
them, there are still utilities there, there are still ongoing costs of
maintaining the Corps of Engineers.
Those costs alone, in terms of these bases that have not been closed,
are mounting every year. I say to my colleagues, look at the reports of
the GAO and the Congressional Budget Office and see what you can do to
help us. We cannot stretch this dollar any further. The dollars
available to us are decreasing, and the demands from the military
people to not go any further are increasing.
I originally got in this because of a complaint from uniformed
officers saying, ``What are you doing to our services? The manpower is
too low.'' I believe that this Base Closure and Realignment Commission
concept should be examined once again in terms of the timing of
spending money on closure of more bases that will not be closed until
the next century.
Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I will be brief. I think the Senator from
Alaska makes some very important points, especially in the area of his
responsibilities in the Appropriations Committee.
First of all, it is a fundamental fact that we have an obligation to
see that the Armed Forces of the United States are run in the most
efficient manner. We cannot run the Armed Forces and conduct our
operations in the most efficient fashion if we cut the defense budget
by 45 percent and the support structure by only 15 percent. That is a
fundamental imbalance which, over time, has to be extremely more
expensive.
Until you get that balance between force structure and bases, then we
will operate, with the taxpayers' dollars, in an inefficient and
wasteful manner. Admittedly, it will be painful. Admittedly, the
environmental problems were underestimated dramatically, but those are
not going to change.
Now we come back to another question and a strong difference that I
have had with the Senator from Alaska for a long time. I will fight as
hard as I can to keep a level of defense spending which is appropriate
to meet the national security requirements of this Nation. But I say to
my friend from Alaska, if the Congress continues to cut, and the
administration continues to propose these cuts, and we end up in the
situation that the Senator from Alaska describes, at least I will have
fought the good fight, and at least the people of this country will
know who sounded the klaxon that this danger was upon us, and who did
not go along and accept a premise that we have to go along with
continued cuts in defense spending which will erode this Nation's
ability to defend our vital national security interests.
It is just like the Grassley-Exon amendment that was going to cut the
budget; therefore, automatically it was coming out of defense. I said,
no, it does not have to come out of defense. It can come out of a whole
lot of things, a list of which a mile long I can give the Senator from
Alaska. But we accepted the premise that any cut in the budget was
going to come out of defense.
I say no. I say we are rational, thinking people and understand that
they cannot continue to come out of defense. They cannot, if we expect
to defend this Nation's vital national security interests.
So I say to the Senator from Alaska, it is time we went to the
American people and said we have to close these bases because we have
to have a proper balance between force structure and the support
structure which are represented by the bases. We may have to pay extra
for it, but we do not necessarily have to throw men and women out of
the military while we are doing it.
Why not cut some of these programs that the American people do not
support anyway when they hear about them? Why not go at it from this
direction rather than saying it is all going to come out of defense,
guys, if we cut the defense budget. It does not have to. That is a
conscious decision made by the Congress of the United States.
I will not support it. I will speak against it and sooner or later
the voters of this country will recognize who stood up for a strong
national defense and who did not, and, unfortunately, in my view, it
may be in a time of national crisis. But I am not going along to get
along.
I yield the floor.
Mr. GRAMM addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I do not have a quarrel with our colleague
from Alaska. I do not doubt the sincerity of his position, but here is
the bottom line. Whatever it costs to consolidate bases or no matter
how long it takes, we know that when defense has been cut by 40 percent
and our base structure has been cut by 15 percent, we have a facility
excess, and therefore we are going to have to continue the review
process.
Nobody wants to do it. I hate to see bases closed in my State. I do
not like seeing them closed anywhere. But there is something worse than
not undertaking that assessment. What is worse is destroying our
capacity to defend America and defend our interests. I know that we
could get into a debate about how long it takes to recapture the money
we spend to close bases, saying it will not happen until the end of the
century. That sounds like a long time. But the end of the century is
less than 6 years away. Closing bases is not going to get cheaper. It
is not going to get easier. We know we have to do it if we are going to
maintain defense. Does anybody believe we are going to have more money
tomorrow than we have today given who is in the White House and given
the makeup of the Congress?
I believe this is something that needs to be done. I feel the same
way about base closings that I do about going to the dentist. I never
went to the dentist until I was a teenager, and it was a shocking
experience when I did. I hate going to the dentist. But when I find out
I have to go, I want to get there and get it over with.
Finally, Admiral Boorda says, ``There is not enough money to maintain
infrastructure we no longer need.''
Now, I think that is as clear a statement of this problem as you can
have. The bottom line is, we have a lot of people in the Senate and the
House, in the Pentagon and the White House--and I do not count the
Senator from Alaska among them--who want to cut defense but act as if
it does not have any impact; that their votes to cut defense do not
affect their State, do not affect their bases.
Well, in reality we know what those votes do. What I want to do is
make rational decisions. The Base Closure Commission process has helped
us do what we hate to do but which we all know has to be done. Somebody
may come forward with a rationale that could convince me the process
should be halted, but I would have to say that as of today I cannot
imagine it. I am afraid that if we stop the base closure review while
we continue to drastically cut defense, we are going to end up with a
military that cannot meet its missions. That is something I do not want
and I cannot support.
I yield the floor.
Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. STEVENS. I just want to make sure my friends understand. The
Senator from Texas does not just have a toothache and needs a dentist.
He needs a root canal, and it is a bad one and he needs some other
experts to look at the situation. I have to let him know that the
experts we have used so far have told us that while the Congress has
said to close these bases and while the authorizers say in effect they
are closed, we have not closed 15 percent. We have closed less than 5
percent.
The reason we have closed less than 5 percent is because Congress
keeps passing environmental standards which must be met by the
military, and these bases now are costing us more to close than they
cost to operate. As a matter of fact, part of the problem is it was
estimated that we could close some and sell them, and the revenue would
be turned back into the Treasury and would be available to help sustain
the military at the level we thought it would be sustained. The sales
are abysmally low. No one wants to bid on this land because of the
environmental problems. They are not willing to take them.
As a consequence, we have the situation where, although we have
ordered about 15 percent to be closed, they have not even come close to
that. We are now going to order some more to be closed, and we are
going to increase spending on them. It will actually be more expensive
to go into it than to let them be delayed for a couple years. You can
go ahead with your force structure reduction, but if you add more bases
to be closed, you are going to hire more people to close them; it is a
different set of people that handle closing a base than handle opening
a base.
I can tell the two Senators, from the best I can tell, the increased
cost of closing bases is decreasing our military readiness; it is
decreasing the amount of money available to do what all of us want to
do, and that is maintain the highest capability we can. I agree we
should not cut as far as we could. I agree we should have proceeded
more rapidly.
My point is I think that the authorizing committee has to take a look
at what is going on. Streamlining our base structure in connection with
the declining force structure is absolutely necessary.
By the way, the Senator's estimate is, in my understanding, very
conservative as to the number of bases to be closed in the next round.
The number of bases to be closed in the 1995 round is equal to the
number that were ordered to be closed in 1988, 1991, and 1993. As I
said, of those--about 10 percent ordered to be closed so far have been
closed. The forces are not there. But the base maintenance costs are
there. I really do not want to see another group of base maintenance
people get paid and have us reduce further the number of people we can
maintain in our standing Army, standing Air Force, and standing Navy.
Now, if I am not being understood--and it sounds like I am not being
understood--I think we are basically in agreement in goals. But I would
ask you how do we get the money to order more bases to be closed and
move in more people to deal with the local communities, to tell them
the bases will not be available to them, start planning for sales, and
then find, as we have in all the rest them, that the environmental
costs and the transitional costs are so great that the estimated
savings have been nil so far? We have not saved one dime so far from
any base that was ordered to be closed. That has not netted out yet,
and we are now 6 years into the process. Six years is a short time all
right, but I have to tell you in terms of base closures it is not very
long at all. And I would predict to you that these bases are going to
be on our base operations list as long as there are environmental
problems. The environmental problems are increasing, not decreasing, by
the laws that this Congress is passing.
Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona [Mr. McCain].
Mr. McCAIN. I wish to make a very brief comment. The Senator from
Alaska, I am sure, knows that the laws passed by Congress require us to
clean up the environment on a base whether it is open or closed. The
environmental cleanup has to be carried out whether that base is open
or closed.
So the fact is that bases that are open, we are required to not allow
them to be in violation of the laws of land.
Yes, it is true. And the fact is that if the Senator from Alaska
believes that these environmental problems are going to be any better
if we delay these bases from being closed 1 or 2 or 3 or 5 years from
now, he has different information from that received by the Armed
Services Committee.
These environmental problems are getting worse and worse and worse.
They are going to cost more and more and more to get cleaned up. So the
sooner we get about it, the better.
Where the Senator from Alaska and I are in disagreement is where the
money comes from. The Senator from Alaska assumes that it comes out of
defense. I say maybe it will. Maybe that is the reality. But it does
not have to be. It does not have to come out of defense. It can come
out of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It can come out of the
pork barrel projects of which I identified--$4 billion worth of
unauthorized appropriations which had no use whatsoever except to
satisfy some Senator or Congressman's district. It could come out of
the airplanes that we purchased for the Department of Defense that they
neither could use nor wanted. We could take it out of the funds for the
airplanes that we bought for congressional junkets.
We could take it out of the billions of dollars that the CBO
identified for me which was total pork barrel spending instead of
taking it out of what we are doing now, and that is telling men and
women who join the military for a career that they have to leave
because we cannot afford to keep them.
Mr. HELMS addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina is recognized.
Mr. HELMS. I thank the Chair.
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