[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 37 (Thursday, March 20, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E535-E536]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    STOP FORCE-FEEDING THE PENTAGON

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ELIZABETH FURSE

                               of oregon

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 20, 1997

  Ms. FURSE. Mr. Speaker, it is a new era and there is now wide 
agreement that we must achieve a balanced budget. That means that all 
spending must be scrutinized and we must not be afraid to include 
military spending in that scrutiny.
  I commend to my colleagues the following editorial from the March 24 
issue of The Nation. It refers to comments by my colleague, Congressman 
Frank, in which he points out that any legislator who votes for the 
Pentagon's budget is voting to cut domestic spending.
  We are not in a zero-sum game. We no longer have the luxury of simply 
adding funding. We must make choices. We should not provide the 
Pentagon more than it asks for.
  The editorial follows:

                    [From The Nation, Mar. 24, 1997]

                            Pentagon or Bust

       There are many reasons to cut Pentagon spending. The United 
     States alone consumes about one-third of the global military 
     budget, spending more than five times as much as any other 
     country. The Pentagon remains the largest source of waste, 
     fraud and abuse in the federal government. While it issues 
     about two-thirds of all federal paychecks and makes about 
     two-thirds of all federal purchases of goods and services, 
     its accounting is so haphazard it can't be audited. The 
     General Accounting Office just reported that the Pentagon was 
     storing $41 billion in excess inventory. Billions more are 
     lost in undocumented payments, misplaced funds, mismanaged 
     programs. Yet the Pentagon remains immune from both 
     Republican efforts to dismantle government and Democratic 
     attempts to reinvent it.
       Not even our nation's security is well served by current 
     policy. The Administration keeps extending military 
     commitments while closing embassies, slashing aid budgets, 
     stiffing international institutions, thus crippling the U.S. 
     ability to lead in addressing deteriorating environmental, 
     economic and social conditions. At home, the military remains 
     our primary industrial policy and public works program, while 
     investments vital to our economy--in education and training, 
     infrastructure, nonmilitary research and development--are 
     starved.
       The United States may be rich enough to afford this folly; 
     the military does consume a smaller portion of our gross 
     national product than at any time since before World War II. 
     But as Representative Barney Frank observes on page 23, the 
     bipartisan commitment to balance the budget in five years 
     while cutting taxes and protecting Social Security and 
     Medicare will force brutal cuts in discretionary spending 
     (everything other than entitlements and interest on the 
     national debt). Choices must therefore be made.
       The military, which already captures more than half of all 
     discretionary spending, has exacted a pledge for a 40 percent 
     increase in procurement over the next five years. The 
     Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review report, due in May, is 
     timed perfectly to reinforce its claim to the money: The 
     brass hope to lock in their budgets and build walls around 
     them in the bipartisan budget agreement widely expected this 
     year.
       But going soft on the military will require drastic cuts of 
     25 to 30 percent or more from domestic programs. The argument 
     is no longer about cutting the military to invest at home but 
     how much will be cut from poor schools, toxic waste cleanup, 
     Head Start, roads and mass transit and how much from the 
     Pentagon.
       The argument for new priorities must begin with a renewed 
     demand for investment--in children, cities, mass transit, 
     health care and education, in clean water and clean air. As 
     Republicans found in the last election, Americans do not 
     favor deep cuts in education, environmental safeguards or 
     health care.
       As we make the case for reinvestment, the Pentagon can be 
     brought back into the debate, the military-based definition 
     of U.S. security challenged, the costs of its misplaced 
     priorities detailed. Frank suggests a practical way to start. 
     He calls on every group working to preserve a domestic 
     program to educate its members about the stark

[[Page E536]]

     reality: Any legislator who votes for the Pentagon's budget 
     is voting to cut domestic spending. Legislators must learn 
     there is a cost to feeding the Pentagon's bloat.

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