[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 110 (Monday, July 23, 2012)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1297-E1298]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2013

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                               speech of

                           HON. RUSH D. HOLT

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 18, 2012

       The House in Committee of the Whole House on the state of 
     the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 5856) making 
     appropriations for the Department of Defense

[[Page E1298]]

     for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2013, and for other 
     purposes:

  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chair, I cannot support this bill in its current form.
  It's telling that every domestic program in this year's budget is 
taking a hit--in some cases, a huge hit. The House majority seems 
perfectly fine with cutting grant funding for our firefighters, our 
cops, and other first responders. The House majority thinks it's good 
public policy to cut programs designed to help the most vulnerable in 
our society, but any suggestion that we need fewer defense contractors 
provokes howls of protest. Any suggestion that national security-
related corporate welfare should be ended--and I'm referring to the 
over-budget F-35 program as a prime example--evinces the most 
hysterical rhetoric about ``weakening America's defenses.''
  Let's deal with the facts. We spend more on defense that most of the 
rest of the world combined. We won the Cold War over 20 years ago, yet 
this budget continues to fund unnecessary and radically over-cost Cold 
War legacy weapons programs that we don't need, can't afford and won't 
help us deal with the kind of terrorist threat we face now and into the 
future. The House majority is throwing the poor under the bus even as 
it throws a kiss to the military-industrial complex.
  The bill also continues funding a war that should have been over long 
ago. As I've said since 2009, our continued presence in Afghanistan is 
prolonging the conflict, not helping end it. The President's ill-
considered assassination-by-drone policy in Pakistan, which now 
features Vietnam war-style ``signature strikes'' against groups of 
individuals without verification of their status as terrorists, has led 
to the deaths of an increasing number of innocent civilians. Indeed, 
the escalation of the drone strikes and the loosening of the 
intelligence standards under which they operate comes even after Osama 
bin Laden was killed last year.
  The original rationale for invading Afghanistan--getting bin Laden 
and his associates--no longer exists, yet this bill continues to fund a 
war whose purpose has clearly been achieved. There is perhaps no 
greater example of a policy on autopilot than our war in Afghanistan, 
which is one of the many reasons I do not support this bill.

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