[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 35 (Tuesday, March 18, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E509]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      REDEFINING NATIONAL SECURITY

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                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 18, 1997

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, on Monday, March 10, in 
conjunction with our colleague, the gentleman from California, the 
ranking Democrat on the National Security Committee, along with the 
senior Senator from Oregon and the senior Senator from Minnesota, I 
participated in a day long meeting on the implications of allowing the 
military budget to stay at its current levels while trying to reduce 
the Federal deficit to zero. The basic point that we and others made is 
that unless we begin to make substantial reductions in the military 
budget, we will devastate a number of other important social and 
economic goals of our society by reducing Federal support for them to 
an unacceptably low level.
  But none of us would be for reducing American military spending if by 
doing so we were going to put at risk our national security. Therefore, 
we began the day with a discussion of the genuine needs of national 
security today, and the highlight of that was a thoughtful, well 
documented analysis of our national security situation presented by our 
colleague from California who is the former chairman and current 
ranking Democrat on the National Security Committee.
  The gentleman from California who came to Congress in 1971, after 
winning an election in which his criticism of the Vietnam War was a 
central factor, has become one of the undisputed experts in the country 
on national security policy. As my colleagues know, he combines a 
strong passion with an extremely powerful analytic intelligence and the 
result is an eloquent, forceful statement of the case for a more 
realistic and comprehensive national security policy, one which would 
allow us to save substantial resources from the military budget.
  Mr. Speaker, because the need to reduce the military budget and make 
funds available for important non-military purposes is the central 
issue facing this Congress, I take the unusual step of seeking 
permission to insert into the Record the extraordinarily thoughtful and 
useful remarks of Mr. Dellums on that occasion, even though it exceeds 
the normal length of remarks which are printed here. But with a 
military budget in hundreds of billions, tens of billions more than it 
needs to be, I believe that asking for the expenditure of a few hundred 
dollars here to bring the case for reduction before the American people 
is indeed a bargain.

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