Nancy Pelosi: “as a conferee, I rise today in opposition to the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill and to express serious…”

“as a conferee, I rise today in opposition to the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill and to express serious concerns about this bill before us today. The conference report on H.R. 3579 is a flawed product, calling non-emergency spending and riders emergencies, while ignoring real emergencies. It is flawed both because of what is in it, and because of what is not in it. I understand the real needs of people in this country who have suffered from natural disasters and believe that we must provide funding for this disaster assistance. We all support pitching in to help families and communities rebuild after forces beyond their control have wreaked havoc on their lives. I also join many of my colleagues in supporting the needed funding to maintain our troops in Bosnia and the Persian Gulf. I object, however, to the unfair and capricious way in which decisions about what spending to off-set were made. It is no small mystery how the majority could decide that defense spending in this bill, including over $200 million in non-emergency projects, would not be offset, but that domestic disaster assistance would be. This means that important social or domestic programs are cut, but defense programs are not. I am particularly troubled by the actions of this Congress to ransack the Section 8 housing reserves once again, in order to provide the off-set funding.”