John Ensign: “to briefly describe the amendment, it is a defense firewall amendment. This is not a new idea. We have had defense…”

“to briefly describe the amendment, it is a defense firewall amendment. This is not a new idea. We have had defense firewalls in the past. They have worked with some success. There have been a few problems with them, but overall they worked with some success. We drafted the defense firewall in this amendment in a little different way than previous firewalls. These changes, I believe, will actually result in the firewall having its intended effect. That is, to make sure that the defense money in the budget is actually spent on defense. In past years, a defense firewall has, frankly, been necessary. The chairman of the Budget Committee can attest to the fact that, under Republican control, this budget enforcement tool should have been in place. I have been very critical of Republicans when we chose to underfund defense purposely to shift money to other programs. Over the last several years, we used a kind of sleight of hand and budget gimmicks, and then restored defense spending later on in emergency supplementals. In effect, this raises overall spending for the Government. Instead of honest budgeting and trying to increase certain non- defense programs in the open, we hid our spending habits from the American people. I have always said, that if you want to increase non- defense spending, have an honest vote to do so rather than using a gimmick. Fund defense honestly rather than what we have been doing, which is dishonest budgeting.”