[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 15]
[House]
[Page 21421]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



             AMERICA NEEDS TO INVEST IN ITS DEFENSE SYSTEMS

  (Mr. CUNNINGHAM asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, our military cannot fight one MRC, that 
is regional conflict, today. General Ryan shut down the Air Force that 
put 1 year of life on every aircraft from Kosovo.
  Last week the press reported that the services are being hit with a 
$5 billion tax, due to a sudden loss of defense budget. We stood in the 
well on this floor and said that the President's budget was gimmicks.
  He said that inflation would stay the same over the next 10 years, 
and so would fuel prices. They have gone up. Those prices cut $5 
billion out of our defense system. The President knew it when he did it 
and he still did it, and when the Joint Chiefs said they needed $150 
billion just to come up to fight two conflicts at the same time, the 
President said, I will give you a $1 billion offset, which means a net 
zero.
  We need to invest in our defense systems and provide for our men and 
women the training and assets when we ask them to go into conflict.

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