[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 16 (Tuesday, February 10, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H418-H419]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           TELL US THE TRUTH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Beauprez). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, I am here tonight to make one very simple 
point. Sometimes the simplest points are the most powerful.
  Families across America are probably eating supper about this time, a 
little worried about the future of the country, wondering whom they can 
trust.
  Well, just a few weeks ago in this Chamber, we had the great speech 
of the year, the President's State of the Union message. And the 
President walked down this aisle in a crowded Chamber, most of the 
House and the Senate and the Supreme Court and other dignitaries were 
here. It was broadcast, of course, live on national television. And at 
this podium right here the President spoke and delivered a powerful 
message. There were many lines where there was applause; and one of 
them was this one, because we knew on that day, on January 20, that the 
President would be delivering his budget. That is a very complicated 
document. It is thousands of pages long. It takes months to prepare, 
and probably on that very night it was already at the printers, the 
type being set.
  Well, perhaps the President was poorly served by one of his speech 
writers, but one of the lines in the President's important message was 
this one: the President said on the night of January 20 in this 
Chamber, he said that ``in two weeks I will send you a budget that 
funds the war, protects the homeland, and meets important domestic 
needs.''
  Well, in 2 weeks he did send us a budget. It arrived here on February 
2. Most of us have had a chance, especially those of us who have the 
privilege of serving on the Committee on the Budget, to dig through 
that budget and find what is in and what is not there. And to our 
surprise and disappointment, especially after the President's remarks 
just a few weeks ago in this Chamber on live national television, the 
budget does not fund the war. In fact, to read the President's budget, 
you would think that we are not at war at all.
  Now, the President's budget does include over $400 billion to fund 
our Defense Department, and that is good; and most of this Chamber will 
support it and support it strongly. But that is largely a peace-time 
budget. That number would have been the same whether we were involved 
in fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq or not. So the budget that the 
President promised us that funds the war, and presumably he meant here 
the war on terrorism, the war where 120,000 of our troops are currently 
serving in Iraq and 10,000 of our troops are currently serving in 
Afghanistan, presumably the President meant the war most Americans 
worry about when they go to bed and pray about when they wake up in the 
morning because almost every day there is a casualty.
  I think American families want the truth. We support our President. 
We want him to succeed. We want our Nation to succeed. We want our 
troops to win in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we need to be told the 
truth. We need to be

[[Page H419]]

told the extent of the sacrifice that we are being asked to make.
  The rumor around here is that we will be asked after November's 
election to come up with another $50 billion to fund the war. I will 
probably support that. I supported the $87 billion supplemental request 
that the President asked us to support because we cannot leave our 
troops hanging in the fields. We have to support our men and women in 
uniform, and I am delighted to do that. But should we not be told the 
cost up front?
  In the President's budget, which he promised to deliver to us and 
which would fund the war, he has essentially a zero figure for funding 
our men and women in uniform. Zero, nada, zilch, nothing.
  Well, that is not accurate. That is not fair. That is not honest. I 
think that undermines the support of our men and women in uniform who 
are out there risking their lives for us and for our freedom every day. 
And in our budget, our central planning document for this government, 
we have nothing for them.
  Many of us are aware of the shortcomings of supplies for our troops 
already. Our troops did not have the bullet-proof vests that they have 
needed to protect themselves in Iraq. Many of our vehicles, our Humvees 
and Bradleys, did not have sufficient spare parts. We did not have 
sufficient equipment to try to deal with the IEDs, the improvised 
explosive devices, that our troops are threatened with every day.
  There are many needs that our troops have that we have not adequately 
funded and that we should fund and that the American taxpayer, I think, 
would be glad to pay for. But we have to be told the price. And it is 
only fair and honest to tell us the price before the election, not to 
hide it until after election day.
  Mr. Speaker, I think most Americans as they sit at home eating 
dinner, and as we try to do our jobs in this body, want to listen to 
and believe the President's message, want to follow as much as we can 
what he asks us to do because he is our Commander in Chief, but he has 
got to tell us the truth.

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