C. W. Bill Young: “Actually, Mr. Speaker, during the discussion on the rule we had a pretty good description of what this bill does. But…”

“Actually, Mr. Speaker, during the discussion on the rule we had a pretty good description of what this bill does. But let me say first that we started out with a ceiling of $6.5 billion. We stayed within that number in the House, our counterparts in the Senate did as well, and this conference report stays within the $6.5 billion. Most of the money is actually for national defense. The bill includes $5.6 billion to address urgent defense needs that include rising fuel costs, military health care programs, readiness and operation requirements, substandard housing for our troops, and disaster assistance for damage sustained at military installations. I would like to echo what my friend from Texas said during the discussion on the rule; that this is more or less a band-aid on our real needs. And I want to emphasize housing and quality of life. There are so many needs in military housing that we should be ashamed of the way we make some of our military personnel live. Some of the facilities that they live in are just totally unacceptable. This bill takes a little step towards correcting that problem, but we have a lot more to do and a long way to go. We were, however, constrained to stay within the $6.5 billion and so we did that. I would also add that while this is a supplemental, there are no emergency designations.”