[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 2193]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     NATIONAL DEFENSE IS IN CRISIS

  (Mr. HUNTER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, national defense is in crisis. We are going 
to be 18,000 sailors short this year in the U.S. Navy. We are going to 
be 700 pilots short in the Air Force. We are short on basic ammunition 
in the Army and the Marine Corps. Our equipment is aging. And we have 
an inadequate budget. We have a budget which is $150 billion less on an 
annual basis than the Reagan budgets of the mid-1980s.
  Now, we do not have to go back up to the Reagan budgets because the 
Cold War is over, but we do have to add an additional $20 billion this 
year. The President has only offered $4 billion of that $20 billion 
that the services request.
  Now is the time to rebuild national defense and this is the House to 
do it.

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