[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 199 (Thursday, December 14, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H14904-H14905]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1415
                   FUNDING AMERICA'S DEFENSE PROGRAM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kim). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from California [Mr. Cunningham] is recognized for 
5 minutes.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I would like to associate myself with 
the remarks of my friend, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Roemer]. I 
think he was right on the ball. I do not necessarily agree with the 
strategy or the tactics used by the House, and I probably would have 
supported the amendment offered by the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. 
Hamilton] if it had--I did not fight to get that unanimous consent 
removed.
  As I stated in my opening remarks last night, I thought all the 
Members across the board had good intentions in this thing. I would 
support that. I would also tell my friend that quite often when we sit 
on this side of the aisle, we feel that there is a lot of 
misinformation on Medicare, that there are no cuts and different 
things, and a different way to get to education, and it is difficult to 
come to those terms sometimes when you are getting slammed down on the 
ground all the time. I would work, and I know the gentleman does, and I 
know how he works, and I know that he himself would do that. The 
problem sometimes is with leadership. I would work with the gentleman.
  Let me go to the issue that I want to talk about.
  Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I would say, as 
classmates and people who serve on the Committee on Economic and 
Educational Opportunities, you and I do work in a bipartisan way on 
many occasions, and I have a great amount of respect for you. When we 
had the Persian Gulf debate, and as a former war hero, you have added a 
great deal to the debate we have had on military matters.
  I just have a deep, deep regret and a heavy heart when we have the 
kind of lack of civility that took place in the body last night on a 
unanimous-consent motion, on a resolution supporting not the mission--
with which I disagree--in Bosnia, but the confidence in our troops and 
the support for our troops, which I wholly agree with. I would hope 
that we could have agreed to that unanimous consent last night.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, what I want to talk about a little today, and I do not 
have time to do it fully, and it is not on a partisan issue, is that 
many of us voted last night on our consciences, and feeling that we 
were doing the best thing for our troops overseas. My concern, as I 
stated, is not the votes last night, Mr. Speaker. My concern is what 
comes in the future, that we hear people say they want to support the 
troops, they want to make sure that they do not come back in body bags; 
that they come back.
  There are legitimate issues on how much we should spend for defense 
and how much not. But remember when the President ran in his campaign, 
he said a $50 billion defense cut would put us into a hollow force, and 
then in his first tax bill would put us at a $177 billion defense 
deficit, would decrease defense.
  Because of some of the different environments we go to in the world, 
with Haiti and Somalia, the different areas, and I am not going to go 
through the negative of those, but it has put us even further below 
what the requirements of defense are. GAO has said we are $200 billion 
below the bottoms-up review. The bottoms-up review was, remember, 
drafted by then-Secretary Les Aspin and the President to see what our 
needs would be to be able to fight two conflicts, and the minimum we 
would need to be able to do that. When you are $200 billion below that, 
then it tells you that you need to put some more dollars into national 
security for this country.

  Some people on the debate tomorrow will say that there is more in 
this Defense authorization bill than the President asked for. This is 
true. But as I take a look, let me give you a couple of examples.
  The F-15 Strike Eagle, the Air Force has not bought a single airplane 
in 3 years because of the budget. They are using the F-15 Strike Eagles 
in Bosnia today, out of Italy and other places. They are also using the 
F-16. The Navy 

[[Page H14905]]
is using the F-18 CD, which is the latest model. The service life on 
those airplanes is coming due and there is no replacement for them.
  In this budget that is coming up tomorrow, what we do is replace some 
of the life cycle in the aircraft that we have been using prior to that 
in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We take a look at something my friend has 
fought for, impact aid that we took out of the budget, and to be able 
to provide for that. He and I agreed we do not have as much as we would 
like in that.
  I also look at Captain O'Grady. Captain O'Grady, when he was shot 
down over that portion of the world, told me personally, he said, 
``Duke, I did not have the training, the ACM time that we need,'' the 
air combat maneuvering.
  I would ask my colleagues to take a look at what the needs are in 
defense. We need to support our kids. Support the bill tomorrow, and do 
what is right.

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