[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 49 (Wednesday, March 21, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E606]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   CRITICIZING NON-DEFENSE SPENDING IN THE EMERGENCY WAR SUPPLEMENTAL

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                         HON. PATRICK J. MURPHY

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, March 21, 2007

  Mr. PATRICK J. MURPHY of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I rise today in 
support of the supplemental spending bill for the wars in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, but I also wish to register some deep reservations I have 
with the bill. While I applaud the bill for providing for our troops 
serving bravely in the field, the bill contains $20 billion for 
programs and projects not related to funding and equipping our troops. 
Making sure that our men and women in uniform are well equipped is too 
important for playing politics, and I am extremely disappointed that 
these extraneous provisions are included in the bill.
  Madam Speaker, many projects funded in the bill have nothing to do 
with equipping our troops and nothing to do with fighting the wars in 
Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, many projects in the bill simply don't 
belong. However, much of the extra non-defense spending in the bill is 
for important and vital programs and I find it sad that we have to use 
this supplemental spending bill to fund them. I say sad, Madam Speaker, 
because the fact that the bill includes things like $2.9 billion for 
Katrina recovery, $2.6 billion for homeland security, and $750 million 
for children's health care is a testament to the dereliction of duty 
exhibited by the rubber stamp 109th Congress. We have to fund these 
vital programs in this year's emergency spending bill because our 
predecessors left Washington last year without passing a budget and 
without doing their jobs. Madam Speaker, this is a disgrace and I am so 
pleased that there's now a Democratic Congress to clean up the mess 
that was left by the Republican Congress on its way out.
  In prior years, the Republican controlled Congress was guilty of even 
more egregious earmarks and runaway spending, such as the now infamous 
``Bridge to Nowhere'' in Alaska. Seeing Congress waste taxpayers 
dollars on such frivolous projects is one reason why I decided to run 
for Congress and it is why I have joined the fiscally conservative Blue 
Dog Coalition.
  A major reason that we have all of these extra projects in 
supplemental spending bills is because President Bush irresponsibly 
refuses to account for war spending in the regular budget process. This 
leads to war spending being brought up as so-called ``emergency'' 
spending bills, which Congress must pass in order to fund our troops. 
This fiscal recklessness when dealing with funding for our troops is 
unique to the Bush administration. The Korean War only had one 
supplemental spending bill, while the Vietnam War, which lasted eleven 
years, only had four.
  Madam Speaker, I'm not the type of person who points out problems 
without proposing a solution. The people of the 8th district sent me 
here to lead, and that is exactly what I intend to do. For this reason, 
I have introduced H. Res. 97, a bill to provide for Operation Iraqi 
Freedom cost accountability. My bill, among other things, would require 
that funding for the war in Iraq go through the regular budgeting 
process, rather than be funded through an endless series of 
``emergency'' spending bills. In my view, this would eliminate the 
ability to attach non-defense spending projects to a bill that should 
be about one thing and one thing only: Providing for our troops.
  In closing, Madam Speaker, I do wish to say that there is a great 
deal to admire in this bill. It provides our troops with the funding 
they need to do their jobs. It provides for benchmarks for the Iraqis 
and a timeline for bringing our troops home. And it sends a message to 
President Bush that he no longer has a rubber stamp Congress that will 
keep funding this war without questioning him. I only wish we could 
have done all of this without these extra unrelated projects. Still, it 
is important that we not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and 
it is important to let the president know that it is time to start 
bringing our troops home.

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