[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 54 (Wednesday, April 30, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E800-E801]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  MAJORITY OF HOUSE DEMOCRATS URGE INCLUSION OF MILITARY SPENDING IN 
                              BUDGET CUTS

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, April 30, 1997

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, with the budget negotiations 
going forward, many of us are disturbed by the apparent assumption that 
military spending should be continued at its current level while 
significant reductions are imposed on a wide range of important 
nonmilitary programs. Health care, environmental cleanup, education, 
job training, community development, transportation, international 
economic assistance--all of these are put seriously at risk by a 
decision to exempt military spending from any significant budget 
discipline.
  While Democratic Members are naturally interested in supporting the 
President at this critical time, significantly more than half of the 
Democratic Caucus recently agreed to a letter which we sent to the 
President last Friday voicing our strong objections to important 
aspects of the budget negotiations as they have been reported.
  To date, 111 of the Democratic Members of the House, along with our 
Independent colleague, have signed on to the letter in which we have 
told the President that ``we strongly believe that a budget compromise 
must begin seriously the process of moving funds from the Pentagon and 
related agencies to the civilian side if we are to balance the budget 
while avoiding devastating cuts over the next 5 years in important 
nonmilitary programs.''
  The goal of reducing the deficit to zero by the year 2002 is very 
widely shared. The debate is not over whether or not to balance the 
budget, but whether to do so in a socially responsible way, which meets 
our obligation to deal with important social and economic problems to 
the extend that we can, or whether to do it in a way that will 
exacerbate these problems. Members of the House do not casually write 
to the President to voice strong objections to efforts to resolve our 
budget difficulty, and I believe that the fact that so many of us have 
felt compelled to do so at this time is a point that should be noted 
here. It is precisely because many of us hope to see a budget 
compromise reached that we can support that we are making clear what we 
believe to be the essential elements of such a compromise in this way. 
Mr. Speaker, I ask that the text of the letter and the list of signers 
as of noon on Monday be printed here.
                                    Congress of the United States,


                                     House of Representatives,

                                   Washington, DC, April 25, 1997.
     Hon. William J. Clinton,
     President, The White House,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. President: We wish to make clear our strong 
     objections to any budget proposal which would maintain the 
     current high level of military spending while reducing 
     severely in real terms both discretionary spending on all 
     non-military functions, and funding for Medicare and 
     Medicaid. You have correctly noted the importance of adequate 
     funding support for education, the environment and job 
     training. We believe that there are other important 
     priorities that must receive adequate funding support in the 
     years ahead as well. Unfortunately, the action of the 
     Republican majority in adding $17 billion to the Pentagon's 
     budget over the past two years has already greatly 
     exacerbated the difficulties we face in providing adequate 
     funds for many of these programs, within the context of a 
     balanced budget by the year 2002. And we are concerned that 
     current proposals from the Republican leadership seek to make 
     this bad situation even worse.
       Many of us have been active in past years in seeking 
     significantly greater contributions from our wealthy 
     European, Asian and Middle Eastern allies in contributing to 
     common defense concerns. We have also opposed the development 
     or procurement of extremely expensive weapons which had 
     originally been designed for use in the context of the 
     military competition with a heavily armed Soviet Union. And 
     we believe that there has been an unwillingness on the part 
     of the congressional majority to hold the military and 
     intelligence agencies to the same level of scrutiny as is 
     applied to domestic agencies when it comes to insisting on 
     efficiency and accurate accounting.
       We therefore strongly urge you to resist efforts to 
     continue to the pattern of a higher than necessary level of 
     military spending at the expense of the non-military 
     functions of the federal government, including those aspects 
     of foreign policy which have also suffered from inadequate 
     funding in past years. It is our responsibility to inform you 
     that we strongly believe that a budget compromise must begin 
     seriously the process of moving funds from the Pentagon and 
     related agencies to the civilian side if we are to balance 
     the budget while avoiding devastating cuts over the next five 
     years in important non-military programs.
       We of course share your view that America must remain the 
     strongest nation in the world, and be well able within a 
     significant margin of safety to meet genuine national 
     security needs. But we believe that the current military 
     budget significantly exceeds what is required in this regard, 
     while important health, public safety, environmental, 
     educational and other functions of the federal government 
     will suffer greatly if Republican priorities are followed. 
     And of course the suffering in this case does not fall 
     abstractly on ``programs'', but rather on the American people 
     who are the intended beneficiaries of this programmatic 
     activity.
       The following Members have signed onto the letter to the 
     President.

[[Page E801]]

         Gary Ackerman, Tom Barrett, Xavier Becerra, Howard 
           Berman, Rod Blagojevich, Earl Blumenauer, David Bonior, 
           George Brown, Sherrod Brown, Walter Capps, Julia 
           Carson, Donna Christian-Green, William Clay, Eva 
           Clayton, John Conyers, Elijah Cummings, Danny Davis, 
           Jim Davis, Peter DeFazio, Diana DeGette, William 
           Delahunt, Ronald Dellums, Peter Deutsch, Julian Dixon, 
           Lloyd Doggett.
         Eliot Engel, Anna Eshoo, Lane Evans, Sam Farr, Chakah 
           Fattah, Bob Filner, Floyd Flake, Thomas Foglietta, 
           Harold Ford, Jr., Barney Frank, Elizabeth Furse, Gene 
           Green, Luis Gutierrez, Maurice Hinchey, Darlene Hooley, 
           Jesse Jackson, Jr., Sheila Jackson-Lee, Marcy Kaptur, 
           Joseph P. Kennedy, II, Dale Kildee, Carolyn Kilpatrick, 
           Ron Kind, Dennis Kucinich.
         John LaFalce, Nick Lampson, Tom Lantos, Sander Levin, 
           John Lewis, William Lipinski, Zoe Lofgren, Nita Lowey, 
           Bill Luther, Carolyn Maloney, Thomas Manton, Edward 
           Markey, Matthew Martinez, Carolyn McCarthy, Karen 
           McCarthy, Jim McDermott, James P. McGovern, Cynthia 
           McKinney, Martin Meehan, Juanita Millender-McDonald.
         George Miller, David Minge, Patsy Mink, John Joseph 
           Moakley, Jim Moran, Jerrold Nadler, Richard Neal, 
           Eleanor Holmes Norton, James Oberstar, David Obey, John 
           Olver, Major Owens, Frank Pallone, Bill Pascrell, Jr., 
           Ed Pastor, Donald Payne, Nancy Pelosi, Charles Rangel, 
           Lynn Rivers, Steven Rothman.
         Lucille Roybal-Allard, Bobby L. Rush, Loretta Sanchez, 
           Bernard Sanders, Charles Schumer, Jose Serrano, David 
           Skaggs, Louise Slaughter, Deborah Stabenow, Fortney 
           ``Pete'' Stark, Louis Stokes, Ted Strickland, Bart 
           Stupak, John Tierney, Esteban Torres, Edolphus Towns, 
           Nydia Velazquez, Bruce Vento, Maxine Waters, Melvin 
           Watt, Henry Waxman, Robert Wexler, Bob Wise, Lynn 
           Woolsey, Albert Wynn, Sidney Yates.

                          ____________________