[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 104 (Tuesday, August 2, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 2, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                        HOLLOWING OUT OUR FORCES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I am here to talk tonight about the 
continuing degradation of America's security and national defenses, but 
before I do that, I would like to comment 1 minute on the announcement 
by the majority that they are going to be bringing up the so-called 
health reform bill shortly and just comment that at least as one 
Representative who has talked to his people for the last year or so 
about this prospective bill, then called the Clinton package, it takes 
a while for the American people to understand what is in this package. 
I think what defeated the President's initial effort was the fact that 
the people saw the package. I think it is appropriate for the majority 
to give the American people a chance to see it, to see the package, a 
chance for small business to look at the mandates that they will be 
operating under, decide whether or not they are going to have to lay 
off people as a result of those mandates, decide how many people they 
are going to have to lay off, talk a little bit to their employees, 
some of whom will be the prospective folks who will be laid off as a 
result of these burdens, and let the American people analyze this, what 
I call the Clinton II health care package. Because it was the people, 
not this House and not people in Washington but the people of the 
United States who essentially defeated the President's first attempt to 
socialize medicine. They should certainly have a chance to look at this 
second attempt before we vote on this bill.

  Mr. Speaker, let me talk about an issue that was a very important 
issue in the late 1970's and is becoming important again because it is 
becoming an issue of some urgency, and that is the security of our 
country. It is the degradation in the readiness of our Armed Forces to 
carry out our national security policy and to enforce our foreign 
policy. Disturbing trends are coming out of the Pentagon right now. 
They are coming from all the services. The Army, the Marines, the Air 
Force, and the Navy are all reporting that it is more difficult now for 
them to recruit qualified personnel, a problem that we had in the 
hollow military of the late 1970's before President Reagan was elected 
and rebuilt national defense with the Republicans. We are seeing a 
degradation in our repair rates for equipment. The operation and 
maintenance rates, major repair of large pieces of equipment is now 
down to about 62 percent of what we need to be doing.
  We have an ammunition stockpile that is deteriorating. We saw, at 
least with respect to the report that I have examined, the expenditure 
of almost all of our smart weapons, those weapons that can zero in on a 
small target and be guided very accurately to their target. We have 
seen that stockpile reduced to the point where in a regular conflict, 
in a medium-sized conflict, all those smart weapons would be used in 
about 1 day.
  We have seen transportation problems. We understand now that we do 
not have a good ammunition port on the west coast, that it might be 
very, very difficult to bring all of our Reserves up in time to start 
moving transportation of heavy equipment and supplies to a regional 
conflict. And the recent reports on readiness that have been coming 
from the Defense Science Board and from the Pentagon itself say that it 
is going to be, very, very difficult to handle two regional conflicts 
at the same time.
  President Clinton has decided to cut $129 billion out of national 
security over the next 5 years and that is below the $50 billion cut 
that then-President Bush, then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and 
then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell decided to make a couple 
of years ago. So they went $50 billion under the projected 5-year plan 
and then President Clinton came along, having been elected, and decided 
to cut $129 billion below that plan and that, my colleagues, is 
hollowing out our forces.
  Remember that phrase in the 1970's, the hollow forces? We are 
hollowing out right now America's military capability.

                              {time}  1710

  Back in the 1970's we had young Navy families that were on food 
stamps. They were being told by their commanders not to be ashamed to 
line up and get food stamps to supplement the hard-earned pay they 
received for sometimes working 10, 12, and 18 hours a day.
  Well today our military families are up to $27 million annually usage 
of food stamps. They have gone up $3 million in just the last year.
  I will continue this special order tomorrow and get into other areas.

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