Robert Berry: “I rise today to support our troops and to express my complete disgust at the process forced on the House of…”

“I rise today to support our troops and to express my complete disgust at the process forced on the House of Representatives by the Republican majority. Today I am faced with a choice. I want to do two things: support our men and women who are in harm's way in Kosovo, and protect the money in the Social Security Trust Fund. Unfortunately, the Republicans have decided that Social Security is not particularly important, and they used the Trust Fund to more than double what the Department of Defense needs to fully fund the military operations in Kosovo. Republicans are willing to rob the Trust Fund to increase the defense budget out of year 2003. I have to ask: how is building a depot in Germany two or three years from now an emergency? We have an appropriations process. We have budget agreements. It was just three weeks ago that we passed the Republican budget plan that set caps on military spending. The budget sets limit on agriculture spending, education spending, and every other kind of federal spending. Today we are seeing the Republicans bypassing their own budget constraints and undermining the whole process.”