[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 128 (Tuesday, September 17, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10684-S10685]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. HARKIN:
  S. 2080. A bill to save taxpayer money by reducing the unnecessary 
increase in Pentagon spending in fiscal year 1997; to the Committee on 
Armed Services.


                  pentagon budget request legislation

 Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, we must maintain a strong national 
defense. There can be no question about that. I believe part of that 
strength comes from wise use of taxpayer dollars. The $265.6 billion 
authorized by this Congress is $11.3 billion more than the Pentagon 
requested. I am offering this bill today to roll back this addon and 
restore the Pentagon's requested level. It directs the Secretary of 
Defense to

[[Page S10685]]

achieve this goal by making adjustments that do not jeopardize our 
military readiness or the quality of life of our military personnel.
  The Secretary of Defense should not have trouble finding areas to 
trim. This budget adds less than $1 billion for readiness and quality-
of-life issues. Too much of the rest is for gold-plated hardware and 
questionable weapons development.
  Some star wars items, like the space-based laser system at an 
additional $70 million, or the kinetic energy antisatellite program at 
an additional $75 million, are expensive, destabilizing, and probably 
won't work. Other items, like the Kiowa helicopter, at an additional 
$190 million have missions that can be filled by other weapons at less 
cost. In this era of tight budgets, when we are slashing other 
programs, I don't see how we can justify these unwise, unwanted, 
unnecessary and untimely expenditures.
  Mr. President, this simply defies common sense. The cold war is over.
  The proposed increase, by itself, is only slightly smaller than the 
combined defense budgets of North Korea, Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Cuba. I 
think the American taxpayers are owed an explanation of this excessive 
spending.
  I would like to know how my colleagues plan to pay for such 
extravagance in this time of constrained spending. This bill will 
either steal from parts of government that are already doing their part 
to reduce the deficit, or it will add billions of dollars to the 
deficit. We simply can't avoid one of these consequences.
  Mr. President, let me put the magnitude of this fiscal 
irresponsibility into perspective. The $11.3 billion bonus is almost 
equal to the budgets of the National Institutes of Health and the 
Transportation Department. It's about twice the budget of the Interior 
Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, and it's almost 
four times larger than the budget of the National Science Foundation. 
Furthermore, for this amount of money we could fund the Pell Grant 
Program for 2 years or we could fund the Head Start Program for over 
2\1/2\ years.
  To look at it in terms of my State of Iowa, this addon of $11.3 
billion is almost three times the budget for the entire State of Iowa. 
Iowans could fund their K-12 education system, some 500,000 pupils in 
about 380 school districts, for 5 years. At the current spending and 
enrollment levels, the $11.3 billion could fund Iowa State University 
for 94 years, the University of Iowa for 99 years, the University of 
Northern Iowa for 166 years, or all three together for 38 years.
  We simply can't justify this excessive spending, we shouldn't ask our 
constituents to fork over $11.3 billion for programs the Pentagon does 
not need or could safely delay.
  It's time for some fairness. It's time for some common sense. And 
fairness tells us that the Pentagon shouldn't be exempt from our 
efforts to balance the budget. Common sense dictates that we can't 
afford $11.3 billion in addons over what the Pentagon and the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff say we need to maintain a strong national defense. I 
urge my colleagues to join me in support of this commonsense bill to 
cut the deficit and put our priorities back in order.
                                 ______