[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 67 (Tuesday, May 20, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4777-S4778]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I would like to speak briefly on the 
plan to pump up the Pentagon budget. This resolution jacks it up by 
$2.6 billion in budget authority.
  Last year, by comparison, we were staring at a $10 to $12 billion 
increase in the defense budget.
  I was very much opposed to such a large increase and did everything I 
could to block it all the way through the process. In the end, I 
failed.
  This year's proposed defense add-on of $2.6 billion is relatively 
modest.
  Mr. President, I do not intend to offer an amendment to kill the $2.6 
billion add-on.
  I know defense is a top priority in the agreement and the defense 
number constitutes a carefully crafted consensus. Like last year, 
however, I still think we should stick with the President's request.
  The $265 billion requested by the President for defense is plenty to 
maintain a strong national defense--if the money is spent right. 
Unfortunately, that's not what happens. Some of it will be wasted.
  The Pentagon is like a ravenous monster that has an insatiable 
appetite for money. I am afraid the $2.6 billion add-on will be 
frittered away on cold war relics.
  Mr. President, I think we need to give the Pentagon some strict 
guidance about how the extra money may be spent. The Budget Committee 
could do it. The Armed Services Committee could do it. Or the 
Appropriations Committee could do it. Somebody needs to do it.
  The language should stipulate that the extra money be used 
exclusively to maintain the force structure and combat readiness. 
Otherwise, the Pentagon bureaucrats are going to rob the readiness 
accounts to pay for modernization.
  In recent years, DOD has consistently promised to pay for 
modernization with savings derived from lower infrastructure costs. But 
the promised savings have never materialized. So they rob the readiness 
accounts to get the money. We should not let that happen.
  Mr. President, the highly touted Quadrennial Defense Review or QDR 
will not solve this problem. The QDR is just a smoke screen for the 
status quo. It's another cover for robbing the readiness accounts to 
pay for modernization. The QDR is simply a repeat of the Bottom-Up 
Review.
  They douse the cold war programs with perfume to make them smell 
better, but it is still the same old stuff. We still have cold war 
programs hooked up to a post-cold war budget. This is a recipe for 
disaster.
  The QDR tells us to keep spending money on all the cold war relics--
like the F-22 fighter. The F-22 is an excellent case in point. The F-22 
was designed to defeat a Soviet military threat that is now ancient 
history. And it's cost is spinnning out of control.
  In 1991, we were told that we could buy 750 F-22's for $58 billion. 
Now we are told that far fewer F-22's will cost $6 billion more. The 
quantity drops by 40 percent and the price goes up by 10 percent. 
That's the Pentagon way.
  Four hundred thirty-eight F-22's are now estimated to cost $64 
billion total, and production hasn't even started yet. If current 
trends continue, the Air Force will be lucky to get 200 F-22's for $100 
billion.
  Mr. President, I think the F-22 is the threat. The F-22 has the 
potential for ruining the Air Force. It will eat away at Air Force 
fighter muscle and will totally demolish plans to modernize the fighter 
force.
  With the F-22, the Air Force will be lucky to have 2 or 3 wings--
total, versus its force of 20 wings today. During the Reagan years, we 
actually had 40 wings and planned for more.
  Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine put this problem in perspective 
in his book ``The Defense Revolution.''
  I would like to quote from his book. He is an authority. He should 
know. This is what Mr. Augustine said:

       If the cost of tactical aircraft continues to increase as 
     it has since the World War I Spad [airplane], a projection of 
     the history of the defense budget over the past century leads 
     to the calculation that in the year 2054 the entire U.S. 
     defense budget will purchase exactly one aircraft.

  The F-22 is a prime candidate for fulfilling Mr. Augustine's 
prophecy.
  Mr. President, we need to reverse this trend. We should make sure the 
extra money is used to maintain combat readiness. The extra money 
should be used to buy more training, fuel, spare parts, and 
maintenance. And that's it.
  Mr. President, we need to take some drastic action. The centerpiece 
of Mr. Cohen's QDR is the plan to retain a capability to fight two 
major regional

[[Page S4778]]

conflicts or MRC's simultaneously. If we fail to protect readiness and 
force structure, Mr. Cohen's two MRC's will be nothing but a pipe 
dream.
  Mr. President, I hope my colleagues on the defense committees will 
find a way to strike a better balance between readiness and 
modernization.
  We must put well-trained, combat-ready troops ahead of obsolete 
programs.
  That is the real choice. It is the only choice.
  Mr. President, when I look at this budget agreement, I find myself 
playing Hamlet. I go back and forth, between all the good things, and 
all the bad things. And then I agonize over which way to go. To agree 
or not to agree. That is the question.
  Usually when the leaders of the two parties get together on a budget 
agreement, it ends up being bad news. It means spending goes up for 
programs favored by each side. It is like a rising tide lifting all 
boats. And then the deficit is made to look OK. A little fairy dust 
produces a sudden windfall of revenues. This time it happens to be 225 
billion dollars' worth.
  I think back to the Rose Garden Budget in 1984 under President 
Reagan. And, the Andrews Air Force Base agreement in 1990. They were 
similar.
  ``Rising Tide'' agreements do two things. First, all the sacred cows 
get more money than they should. Second, accountability for those 
programs goes out the widow. Desperately needed reforms do not take 
place.
  In 1984, we should have frozen the defense budget and demanded 
reforms. Instead we looked the other way. The freeze did not occur 
until the next year--with my amendment--and the reforms did not take 
place until 3 years later--with Nunn-Goldwater and the Packard 
Commission. By that time, we had already poured lots of money down a 
rathole.
  In addition, with rising tide agreements, the budget enforcements we 
put in place are then violated. We saw that in 1990, when we gave 
Gramm-Rudman a fix. The only thing we fixed in that budget was the 
ability to overtax and overspend. Now, we're seeing another enforcement 
violated to accommodate the rising tide--and that's Exon-Grassley. If 
we violated budget enforcement before, why should we believe it won't 
happen again?
  Meanwhile, in this budget, the absence of Medicare reform is 
deafening. A colossal structural nightmare is facing us just 15 years 
down the road. Especially in Medicare. Long-term reform is needed. Does 
this budget address that? No.
  And the sacred cows? Two examples. One supported by my side of the 
aisle, another by the other side.
  The cold war is over. But we need to spend an extra $2.6 billion this 
year for a defense budget that's still geared toward fighting the cold 
war. The same cold war that disappeared 10 years ago.
  What the Pentagon should not do--but will do with this money--is buy 
a bunch of cold war relics, like the F-22 fighter. That money should be 
going into the readiness and training accounts. But it won't be. 
Because politics is more powerful than commonsense.
  The Quadrennial Defense Review is simply a repeat of the Bottom-Up 
Review. It's a smokescreen to maintain the status quo, to plan for an 
obsolete war. Meanwhile, this is the same defense budget with 50 
billion dollars' worth of unmatched disbursements, which cannot pass an 
audit, and whose financial records are in absolute chaos. We do not 
know what anything costs. It is hard to make rational decisions on bad 
information. It is a budget crying out for reform.
  But that is OK. Because the other side of the aisle also has a few 
sacred cows crying out for reform. But we'll pump those up, too. Take 
AmeriCorps. Cannot pass an audit. Cannot even be audited. No 
accountability. In bad need of reform. We were shelling out $27,000 per 
volunteer. That is crazy.
  So, last year we froze AmeriCorps and pushed for reforms. They have 
been promised, but not yet delivered. But this agreement would 
jeopardize reform and accountability at AmeriCorps. Instead of a 
freeze, plus reforms, this program will get an extra three-quarters of 
a billion dollars, plus no incentive to implement the promised reforms. 
And that hurts the efforts of many of us who have tried to save this 
program, but make sure the taxpayers are getting their money's worth.
  Finally, there is the matter of the deficits. Under this agreement, 
they go up, and then they fall off the table. In other words, the only 
progress on deficit reduction comes in the last 2 years. This reflects 
that phenomenon I call the narcotic of optimism. We're still addicted 
to it. It is simply not realistic. But it sure feels good.
  So that is a mountain of reasons why this agreement is bad. The 
reasons on the good side are not as impressive-sounding. But there are 
a couple of reasons.
  First, even though the tide is rising, it does not mean we cannot 
push even harder for reforms, to make sure they take hold. We 
desperately need long-term Medicare reform. We have a responsibility to 
provide it. We cannot duck it. If it takes a bipartisan commission 
instead of a budget agreement, so be it.
  But the most powerful reason, in my mind, in favor of this agreement, 
is that it is a bipartisan agreement of the leaders. When's the last 
time we saw that in this town? This is a first step, and only a first 
step. But it represents clearing a major, major hurdle--which was a 
lack of bipartisan cooperation. The importance of that accomplishment 
cannot be underestimated. And the desire of the American people to have 
us working together instead of fighting all the time also cannot be 
underestimated.
  And so that means, even though I have a mountain of reasons to oppose 
this agreement, and even though the reasons for supporting it are the 
size of a mouse by comparison, it is a mouse that roars for us to take 
the first step.
  And if we take that step, it means we are all the more obliged to 
pursue reforms in the meantime, and make sure we stick to the 
enforcement measures.
  And so, Mr. President, I think ultimately the chairman of the Budget 
Committee, Senator Domenici, and the other leaders on both sides of the 
aisle are to be commended for taking a positive, yet very difficult 
first step toward addressing our fiscal problems. Even though I might 
disagree with much of this agreement, I look forward to supporting it, 
and then appealing to my colleagues over the next 5 years to keep us on 
track for two things: a balanced budget, and much needed program 
reforms.

                          ____________________