[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 52 (Tuesday, April 1, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H2517]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           KEEP SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS NARROWLY FOCUSED

  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States has no 
greater responsibility than to protect and defend the American people. 
While defending our freedoms half a world away, this administration is 
just as focused on the security needs right here in our homeland. These 
dual priorities are expressed in the President's supplemental budget 
request.
  This war budget will meet America's needs directly arising from 
Operation Iraqi Freedom and our ongoing war against terror, including 
$63 billion for military operations, $5 billion in assistance to help 
our brave coalition partners and $4 billion for the Departments of 
Justice and Homeland Security to address the immediate and emerging 
threats to American soil.
  Predictably, detractors are surfacing to criticize the President's 
request. It should come as no surprise that many of the people 
criticizing this war budget are the same ones who have criticized all 
along the bold policies it would pay for.
  The war in Iraq and the war on terror are vital to the national 
security of the United States. The Secretaries of Defense, State and 
Homeland Security and the Attorney General have assessed their needs 
and asked the President for the funds necessary to meet those needs. 
This supplemental then reflects the informed opinions of the experts on 
President Bush's national security and homeland security teams. Yet the 
pseudo-experts say it is not enough.
  The ballooning of spending bills seems to be an annual ritual here in 
Washington, D.C., but before we are tempted to spend money for projects 
unrelated to our pressing security needs, we should all remember what 
it is we are doing here. This is not a normal appropriations bill. Its 
purpose is to fight and win the war in Iraq, to liberate an oppressed 
people from a brutal dictator. Its purpose is to fight and win the war 
on terror and defend our Nation from those who would revisit on us the 
horrors of 9/11.
  Let us keep in mind the seriousness of the times and the cool 
deliberation required of our homeland security experts to determine our 
needs. We must give our national and homeland security agencies the 
money that they need to protect us, and we must make sure every dime we 
spend in the supplemental goes to that purpose, and that purpose alone.

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