[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 60 (Thursday, April 29, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H2475]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   REPUBLICAN COMPLAINTS ABOUT ABUNDANT MILITARY SHORTAGES MET WITH 
                       SILENCE AT THE WHITE HOUSE

  (Mr. BALLENGER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. BALLENGER. Madam Speaker, the war in Kosovo has exposed a 
military readiness and national security vulnerability that must be 
removed. Evidence of our current military shortage is abundant:
  We are dangerously close to running out of air-launched cruise 
missiles, a situation unthinkable in the days of Ronald Reagan's strong 
leadership. More than half of the B1-B bombers in Ellsworth Air Force 
Base are not mission capable because they lack critical parts. We are 
diverting planes from their patrols over the Iraqi no-fly zone in order 
to fill out the Kosovo mission.
  Republican complaints and oversight hearings about this deteriorating 
situation over the past 6 years have been met with silence in the White 
House and indifference in the press. No one seems to care. For four 
straight years, four straight years, the Republican Congress 
appropriated more money for defense than the President requested. But 
each year it is more of the same: an inadequate defense budget and 
insufficient resources.
  Now will the President finally care?

                          ____________________