Joel Hefley: “to quote Ronald Reagan, there you go again. Every year, liberals in this body think we can reach into the defense budget…”

“to quote Ronald Reagan, there you go again. Every year, liberals in this body think we can reach into the defense budget and take money for whatever the good things are that we want to do and our defense can continue to absorb the loss. The gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] talks about let us spend it on education. Mr. Chairman, let me tell the gentleman, we spend over $300 billion a year on education in this country, more than we spend on the Department of Defense. Let me point out that this is real money that has real ramifications. Let me just talk about the area that I am most familiar with. The Sanders amendment would compel a $457 million reduction in military construction and military family housing. What would that mean? The amount is equivalent to the entire Navy and Marine Corps family housing construction program and the added funds the committee recommends for the Army family housing construction. Take all of that away. This amendment will mean a cut of funding for 3,345 family housing units, or 41 percent of the housing improvements in this bill. Mr. Chairman, a $457 million cut is equivalent to wiping out every American barracks project in the President's request and the entire $2,000 added to committee recommendations for all of the services. It is roughly equal to all of the MILCON provided in this bill for the reserve components, and the added funding recommended by the committee for the Army military construction.”