Letter to the Honorable Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House
Letter
Boozman Pushes For Clean Department of Defense Appropriations Bill
U.S. Representative John Boozman (R-AR) signed onto a letter urging Speaker Pelosi to produce a clean Department of Defense Appropriations Conference Report that meets the needs of our troops instead of carrying unpopular legislation through Congress on the backs of our military.
"We must provide our troops with the resources they need to accomplish their missions successfully, which is why I supported the Department of Defense Appropriations Bill when it came before the House in July. Recent media reports indicating that Speaker Pelosi and the Majority party will bring a bill back for final approval that is loaded with unrelated items such as the largest debt increase in history is just wrong. Using our troops to advance unpopular pieces of legislation is unacceptable and fails to live up to the transparency and accountability Americans have been promised." Boozman said.
The following is text of the letter sent to Speaker Pelosi:
We write today to express our strong opposition to reports that the Democrat Majority is considering attaching unrelated and extremely controversial proposals, such as an increase in the public debt limit, to the Fiscal Year 2010 Defense Appropriations bill. We object to maneuvers to use our troops as leverage to enact proposals that the Majority either cannot pass on their own or for which they wish to avoid directly voting on and we will oppose a Defense Appropriations package that includes such provisions.
Unfortunately, there seems to be pattern developing this year of using legislation that supports our men and women in uniform to pass other contentious proposals that are extraneous to our troops. We should supply those who risk their lives for our country with the resources they need without conditions and without using them to accomplish other legislative goals. House Republicans stand ready to help the Majority enact a defense bill that meets the needs of our troops, but we will not assist your effort to use the troops to enact an increase in our national debt limit so as to finance the irresponsible spending policies of your party.
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