[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12451]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      MONITORING DEFENSE SPENDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, we all respect, admire and appreciate those 
who serve in our Nation's Armed Forces. Serving in our military is 
certainly one of the most honorable ways anyone can serve our country. 
I believe national defense is one of the very few legitimate functions 
of our national government, and certainly one of the most important.
  However, we also need to recognize that our military has become the 
most gigantic bureaucracy in the history of the world. And like any 
huge bureaucracy, it does many good things; of course, always at huge 
expense to the taxpayer. And like any huge bureaucracy, our military 
does many things that are wasteful or inefficient. And like any huge 
bureaucracy, it tries to gloss over or cover up its mistakes. And like 
any huge bureaucracy, it always wants to expand its mission and get 
more and more money.
  Counting our regular appropriations bills, plus the supplemental 
appropriations, we will spend more than $750 billion on our military in 
the next fiscal year. This is more than all the other nations of the 
world combined spend on their defense.
  The GAO tells us that we presently have $50 trillion in unfunded 
future pension liabilities on top of our national debt of almost $9 
trillion. If we are going to have any hope of paying our military 
pensions and Social Security and other promises to our own people, we 
cannot keep giving so much to the Pentagon.
  No matter how much we respect our military and no matter how much we 
want to show our patriotism, we need to realize that there is waste in 
all huge bureaucracies, even in the Defense Department.
  There is a reason why we have always believed in civilian leadership 
of our Defense Department. The admirals and generals will always say 
things are going great, because it is almost like saying they are doing 
a bad job if they say things are not doing well and the military people 
know they can keep getting big increases in funding if they are 
involved all over the world.
  However, it is both unconstitutional and unaffordable for us to be 
the policeman of the world and carry on civilian government functions 
in and for other countries. National defense is necessary and vital. 
International defense by the U.S. is unnecessary and harmful in many 
ways.
  Now we are engaged in a war in Iraq that is very unpopular with a big 
majority of the American people. More importantly, every poll of Iraqis 
themselves shows that 78 to 80 percent of them want us to leave, except 
in the Kurdish areas.
  They want our money, but they do not want us occupying Iraq. Surely, 
we are not adopting a foreign policy that forces us on other people, 
one that says we are going to run Iraq even if the people there want us 
to leave. A majority of the Iraqi Parliament has now cosponsored a bill 
asking us to leave.
  It is sure not traditional conservatism to carry on a war in a 
country that did not attack us, did not even threaten to attack us, and 
was not even capable of attacking us. And it is sure not traditional 
conservatism to believe in world government even if run by the U.S.
  Our war in Iraq has greatly damaged the Republican Party and 
conservatism in general. Even though this war has gone against every 
traditional conservative view, especially fiscal conservatism, it is 
seen by most as a conservative war. Even worse than the damage it has 
done to my party and a philosophy I believe in very deeply is the harm 
it has done to our relations with other countries, especially other 
countries in the Middle East. But worst of all, of course, is the fact 
that so many young Americans have been killed and horribly wounded in a 
very unnecessary war.
  President Bush when he ran for office in 2000 campaigned strongly 
against nation building. Unfortunately, that is what we have been doing 
in Iraq. The President in 2000 said what we needed was a more humble 
foreign policy. That is what we needed then, and it is what we need 
now.
  William F. Buckley, often called the godfather of conservatism, 
summed it up best in a column he wrote almost 2 years ago: ``A respect 
for the power of the United States is engendered by our success in 
engagements in which we take part. A point is reached when tenacity 
conveys not steadfastness of purpose but misapplication of pride. It 
can't reasonably be disputed that if in the year ahead the situation in 
Iraq continues about as it has done in the past year, we will have 
suffered more than another 500 soldiers killed. Where there had been 
skepticism about our venture, there will be contempt.'' That was 
William F. Buckley in 2005, and the key point there, he said ``a point 
is reached when tenacity conveys not steadfastness of purpose but 
misapplication of pride.''

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