[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 147 (Thursday, October 15, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H10999-H11000]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  AMERICA'S PROMISE: NATIONAL DEFENSE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to address the House tonight 
with regard to the bill we are going to be voting on tomorrow. I think 
the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), some of his comments were 
completely accurate in that this is a crazy process, the way we have 
come down here at the end of the year to take these appropriations 
bills and to lump them together. I do not think this is a good way to 
do business.
  We also have to recognize this is a political institution. Two 
completely different political parties. Parties do things. Sometimes we 
scratch our head and do not completely understand and we ask why.
  America should be very clear that back in August, the President had a 
campaign strategy that he coordinated with the Democrats and that was 
he wanted to shut down the government, so he came over here to the 
Cannon Building and he met with the Democrat Caucus. They gave him a 
rounding cheer and applause as they wanted to unite and come together 
and when we came back together after the August recess, that the 
President would shut down the government.
  Mr. Speaker, he wanted to do that because he thought that he did a 
good job when he shut down the government before, and Republicans kind 
of helped him do that. And so he thought, boy, this would be a great 
strategy. It would be a great distraction from his own problems and a 
distraction for the Democrats and their failure to accomplish a lot of 
things they wanted to accomplish.
  So what happened? Here we are still in session, a few weeks before an 
election. And I agree with my colleague from Mississippi, this is not a 
healthy way to do business. But we also need to understand what put us 
in this predicament in the first place.
  So, there was a political strategy at hand. And, fortunately, we were 
able to get an agreement. My assessment of the agreement so far is that 
the Republicans have about 65 to 70 percent and the Democrats, they got 
what they want. That is what politics is about, is about the art of 
compromise.
  Anybody can stand here in the well and talk about a lot of things 
they do not like and everybody can find a reason to not vote for it. 
Likewise, people can find reasons to vote for it. And sure enough, they 
will do it for whatever particular reason that will be most beneficial 
for them back in their home districts. But let me talk about something 
that is more important than either political parties and something that 
gets my attention with regard to this bill. That is about America's 
promise, and America's promise is that of our national defense.
  When I think about our national defense, we had some testimony by 
Gordon Sullivan, who is the former Chief of Staff of the United States 
Army who came and for years and year I used to listen to the Chief of 
Staff of the Army come and talk to us on the Committee on National 
Security. He always talked about the Army being on the razor's edge. 
That is how close we were. This budget will be okay, but we are right 
on the edge.
  Now in his retirement, he talks now about how fragile the Armed 
Forces are today. He is absolutely correct. In my 6 years here in the 
House during the Clinton administration, I have seen what he has done 
to our United States military. They are truly extended in every corner 
of the world. They have a strategy of working harder and doing more for 
less, and I can assure my colleagues that is not a strategy for 
success.
  We have Navy ships going to sea undermanned as a result of the Navy

[[Page H11000]]

having 18,000 fewer sailors than at the appropriate levels for which I 
marked up as chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Personnel. We 
have later-deploying Army divisions that have been hollowed out because 
the Army lacks the resources to man them. We lack the E-5, E-6 
sergeants to properly man five of the follow-on divisions. And when we 
are short these sergeants, we cannot just grow a sergeant overnight.
  So, I am very concerned about our, quote, national military strategy 
to successfully fight and win nearly two simultaneous major regional 
conflicts. So I am pleased that in this budget agreement we will be 
plussing up defense. I applaud the President for being a good listener 
to his Chiefs. He had sent us a letter saying that he wanted to plus-up 
defense by a billion on readiness shortfalls. Then he learned that that 
billion was really in excess of 25 to 30 billion is what we really 
needed.
  So, I am not going to stand here in the well and attack the 
President, because I am glad that he has been a good listener here in 
these budget negotiations. I would have liked to have had a higher 
number for defense, because I have been out there with the sailors and 
the soldiers and the airmen and the marines and I see the equipment. I 
see the cannibalization of our aircraft. I see that our ships are going 
to sea and they are going out there at levels that used to be called C-
1 battle readiness. Now they go at levels called C-2. At C-2, they are 
not just going out C-2, they are going out C-2 plus 1, which means that 
when a ship goes out and one person has a workplace injury, now they 
end up at C-3 level of readiness. It is deplorable.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill and I 
appreciate the negotiators working out an increase for defense.

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