Republican Study Committee

Floor Speech

REPUBLICAN STUDY COMMITTEE -- (House of Representatives - March 22, 2007)

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Iowa so much, and I thank him for hosting our Republican Study Committee hour this evening so that we can come here and talk a little bit about what those of us in the Republican Study Committee are doing, and certainly how we feel about the supplemental budget that is before us, a vote that we will take tomorrow. I appreciate the context that Mr. King has brought to our debate tonight.

It is so very interesting to listen to our colleagues across the aisle. They talk about how they are going to change things, and when we talk, Mr. Speaker, about the change the American people wanted to see in November, they were not talking about subpoenas and hearings and vilifying people. The Democrats said that was not what they were going to do, and we know there are many who would like to make the President responsible for every single thing that has gone wrong.

We understand that, and we accept that, but it is unfortunate that when they come down here and they talk about honesty and accountability and trustworthiness and oversight and responsibility, their actions do not match their words. Their actions do not match their words at all.

What we continue to see in the supplemental budget, in the D.C. voting bill that they pulled from the floor today, and the budget that they will bring before us next week are a lot of accounting gimmicks, trying to move spending off line, hiding dollars, budget manipulation and deception. My goodness, this does not match up to what we hear from their rhetoric at all.

We know that there was all this talk about trying to be certain that we kept the spending low, and, Mr. Speaker, it took our colleagues across the aisle, as they took the majority, it took them 2 days to increase spending and 2 weeks to increase taxes on the American taxpayer, on the middle-class families working so hard to make ends meet, 2 days to increase spending.

They have spent well over an additional $50 billion so far. Two weeks to increase taxes, and as this budget that the Democrats are working on comes to the floor next week, they are going to invoke the largest tax increase in U.S. history, $400 billion over 5 years. That does bring us to the point of talking about the supplemental, and that is before us. Because as we hear all of this rhetoric, what we see is a budget, a supplemental bill that is to be there for our troops.

We all know that there is a lot that our troops need. When it comes to meeting their needs, when it comes to meeting their readiness, there is a lot they need. One of the reasons for that, when you go in and you look at the decade of the 1990s, budget after budget after budget, the military was cut. Funding to the military was cut. Funding to veterans, funding to veterans health care, funding to programs for the military retirees, funding for the active duty, funding for equipment, funding for artillery, funding for research and development, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, year after year after year. The Democrats chose to cut that.

Bill Clinton chose to cut that because they had other priorities. They were do the dot-com boom. They were into issues that were other domestic issues, but the Nation's security was not a priority. Certainly, even the current Speaker of the House was quoted in last year's campaign as saying national security shouldn't be a campaign issue.

There is nothing more important than the security of our families in this Nation. There is not one thing more important.

I have so many places I could go to talk about what has happened to this budget, to this supplemental bill that is before us tomorrow. It is to be the emergency spending bill for the war on terror, for our issues in Iraq. USA Today even had an editorial calling this a bad bill, because they don't see, and I agree with them, I agree with USA Today on this, they don't see an additional $500 million for the Forest Service as an emergency spending. They don't see $283 million for the Milk Income Loss Contract Program an emergency, or $120 million to compensate for the effects of Hurricane Katrina on the shrimp and fish industry, or $100 million for citrus assistance, or $74 million for peanut storage costs or $64.4 million for salmon fisheries or $54 million for asbestos mitigation, or $48 million in salaries and expenses for the Farm Service Agency, or $35 million for NASA risk mitigation or $25 million for spinach growers or $25 million for live stock.

Even USA Today doesn't see that as emergency spending. I agree with them, because it's not.

I bet that many Members of this House had a wonderful mother like my mom has always been. My mother was always very good at saying, when I was doing something that maybe wasn't appropriate, she would say not here, not now, this is not the place.

Well, as good as some of these programs may be, not here, not now, this is not the place. The men and women in the US military are worth more. They are worth more than the actions, the actions and the conduct that is being carried forward in this budget. It is the wrong place, and this is the wrong time to spend $21 billion on discretionary spending that the Democrat majority does not want to carry to the floor and debate. They want to hide it. They want to keep it out of sight. They don't want anybody to know this. They just want to get the spending in there. Because, why? They want to circumvent their own PAYGO rules and their own budget rules. It is not the time; it is not the place.

Now, if the leadership of the Democrat Party is so into instant gratification that they cannot wait to take it to committee and go through the proper channels, then I think they need to have a reevaluation about what is important. I can tell you what is important to my constituents. It is knowing that when they put their head on the pillow at night, they are safe. It is knowing when they drop their children off at school, they are safe. It is knowing that when those children graduate from high school and from college, they are going to have a brighter future. It is knowing that as they work hard to build a business, that they are going to have the opportunity to grow that business. It is knowing that when they retire, that they are going to be able to enjoy every single day of that retirement.

It is knowing that, yes, indeed, they are going to be accountable, they are going to support their government, and it is knowing that their government is going to be there to support the fundamental values, the underpinning of this Nation, and to support the men and women who put their lives on the line every single day to go and defend this country and defend their freedom.

You know what, if it were not for those men and women in uniform, if it were not for them doing their job, if it were not for the fact that they have done their job time and again during the course of this Nation's history, you and I would not be standing here tonight having this debate.

There is a price that is paid for freedom. Every penny we appropriate in an emergency bill deserves to be spent on the men and women wearing the uniform defending that freedom.

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