[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 67 (Tuesday, May 14, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H4905-H4906]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION BILL MEETS NATION'S COMMITMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I think it is appropriate that I get a 
chance to follow my esteemed colleague from Colorado, Mrs. Schroeder, 
because I want to show her some of what she calls wasteful spending on 
the part of the Republican majority for defense.
  I have with me an ammunition pouch. It is an empty ammunition pouch. 
It was issued by the U.S. Marine Corps and it symbolizes some of the 
increased defense spending that we are going to be engaged in as we 
pass this bill through the House. It manifests some of the $12 billion 
plus in defense spending which, as the gentlewoman said, is a little 
less than a 5-percent increase over what the Clinton administration 
asked for.
  This year I had a meeting with the services, and I had the ranking 
member, the Democrat, my good colleague from Missouri, Mr. Skelton, the 
ranking member on the procurement subcommittee that I chair, 
participate in this meeting with me. We asked the services to come in. 
We asked the Marine Corps and the Army and the Navy and the Air Force 
to come in.
  I had a basic question for them: ``Do you have enough ammunition, 
basic bullets for your troops, to fight the two-war scenario that we 
request you to fight, that President Clinton has said you must be able 
to meet?'' That means if we should have a problem in the Middle East, 
like Desert Storm, and at the same time perhaps have a problem in the 
Korean Peninsula, if the North Koreans should take advantage of our 
being tied up in the Middle East and start moving down the Korean 
peninsula, and we had to move there and fight basically two 
contingencies at the same time, would we have enough basic ammo to 
fight that two-war contingency under the Clinton administration's 
defense budget?
  The answer from the Marines--and, incidentally, the Marines are 
always the most candid, perhaps they are the worst politicians in 
Washington but they are always the most candid--they said, 
``Congressman, we don't have enough bullets to fight the two-war 
contingency that we are charged with.''
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HUNTER. I yield briefly to my colleague, although I did not ask 
her to yield, but go ahead.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman knows I was not 
going to make any amendment that would attack extra ammunition. That is 
not the point. The point was about some of the weapons that I think 
even the gentleman might agree we did not need to add.
  Mr. HUNTER. I thank my friend but I want to tell her, as chairman of 
the Subcommittee on Military Procurement, what my jurisdiction includes 
and what we are adding money for. I want to go through the list, but 
the most basic one, the one that I charged our staff with first, was to 
make sure that the troops have enough bullets in their guns to be able 
to defend the country. That was the first priority that we gave on this 
$6 billion add-on.
  To get back to my point, I asked the Marines what it would take to 
fill their ammunition pouches and to add all the mortar rounds, the 
howitzer rounds and everything else, starting with basic M-16 bullets 
for infantrymen. What did they need beyond what President Clinton is 
providing them in his budget? They said, ``Congressman, we are about 96 
million M-16 bullets short. That means we run out. That means our ammo 
pouches are empty when we get to that point.''
  So the first thing we put in this budget was enough money for 96 
million M-16 bullets, and we put that in the budget this year. They 
then gave me a list. I said, ``Give me a list of what it is going to 
take you to be able to handle the two-war scenario.'' They gave us that 
list and it came to about $360 million. That was the first addition 
that we made.
  We then went to the Chiefs of the respective services, because last 
year when the Republicans added defense money it was charged, ``You're 
adding stuff that the President doesn't want, you're adding stuff that 
the Pentagon doesn't want, that his Chiefs in the services don't 
want.'' So we asked the Chiefs to come before us. We did that because 
we got a memorandum from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 
General Shalikashvili, that said we need to spend for modernization, 
that is for new equipment for our soldiers, $60 billion a year.
  Even President Clinton in 1995 when he was projecting the 1997 
defense budget, which is what we are debating today, said ``In fiscal 
year 1997,'' that is

[[Page H4906]]

this year's defense budget, ``I want to have almost $50 billion spent 
on modernization.'' Yet when he came through with the budget, it was 
$10 billion less than what he said he was going to be asking for a 
couple of years ago. So it did not even fit the President's blueprint. 
It was $10 billion under the President's blueprint for defense spending 
this year.
  So we asked the service Chiefs to come in. We said, ``What do you 
need to make sure that the men and women of the services have the best 
equipment?'' They came up with a list of $15 billion. In the defense 
bill today we are going to be able to go over those systems and tell 
the Members exactly what they are. We did improve the safety 
requirements for the Marines also. We are adding 24 Harrier safety 
upgrades, in light of the 3 crashes that occurred in the last few 
months. We will describe this in greater detail in the defense debate.

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