Patricia Schroeder: “Mr. Speaker, let me say, I have been trying to think of a good name for this bill, and I heard it from that side of the…”

“Mr. Speaker, let me say, I have been trying to think of a good name for this bill, and I heard it from that side of the aisle. This bill is a piece of work. This bill is a piece of work that goes right after readiness. I sit on the Committee on National Security and I have sat there for 23 years, and for the last year all we have heard about is 'hollow force, hollow force, hollow force.' Clinton let them have a hollow force. Guess what? They raided the readiness funds we put in there, and so I guess they decided maybe they like the hollow force, they said it so many times, because this bill is less in readiness than Clinton's bill. It is $7 billion more than the Pentagon asked for. Imagine. We did not even do that during the cold war. It is really just a wonderful goodie package for all the defense contractors. We have loaded in all of these wonderful goodies and corporate benefits that the Defense Department did not ask for. They did not ask for B-2's, they did not ask for all of this. And if you look at the funny, fuzzy accounting in here, which Alice Rivlin has and has sent us a letter, it is very troubling, because I think it is even way over the $7 billion, because they played with the inflation fund.”