Tony Thurmond: “as we debate the Defense supplemental appropriations bill, I want to ensure that my colleagues and the managers of the…”

“as we debate the Defense supplemental appropriations bill, I want to ensure that my colleagues and the managers of the bill are aware of some of the underlying problems with the way this supplemental was crafted. First let me say the supplemental is necessary, and I intend to support the bill. The bill is designed to replace critical readiness and training funds which the services had to spend in the first half of this fiscal year for humanitarian and other so-called peace operations. If we do not replace those funds, military readiness will continue to decline. Combat readiness has declined too far already. The Nation cannot afford to let it erode further. It angers me that the administration has allowed readiness to suffer at all. Under these circumstances, it would be irresponsible to require the military departments to further curtail training and maintenance, and cause more degradation in combat readiness. While this supplemental is necessary, I was surprised to see that the Appropriations Committee chose to fully offset the costs of these peace operations, which were ill-conceived and not approved by the Congress, from within the fiscal year 1995 Defense budget. In others words, under this bill the Department of Defense must fund those operations totally within its existing budget. I have said over and over that the defense budget has been cut too much, too fast.”