Dick Durbin: “I respect my colleague from Texas, the majority whip. I disagree with his conclusion. I am vice chairman of the Defense…”

“I respect my colleague from Texas, the majority whip. I disagree with his conclusion. I am vice chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. The chairman is Senator Cochran of Mississippi. The two of us and our staffs worked night and day to put together a good Defense appropriations bill. I think we did a good job. The problem is, there is a difference between the Democrats and the Republicans about the total amount to be spent on the defense budget. The Republicans suggest that we should take $38 billion and put it into the defense budget but not to add a similar amount to the nondefense budget. I could go onto the arcane language of OCO and all of the sequestration. I am going to try to avoid that and keep this at a level where most people understand what we are talking about. Our concern is not about funding the military on the Democratic side. We wholeheartedly support that, all of us. Not a single Democrat dissents from what I have just said, but the question is whether or not the money that is going to be invested in nondefense agencies is also going to be protected in this appropriations process. That is all we have asked for. We are willing to put $38 billion more into defense, let's put the same amount in nondefense. What is nondefense? Nondefense, frankly, includes a lot of appropriations programs that are critically important to middle-income families across America.…”