Jasper Packard: “I rise to urge all Members to vote to override the President's veto of H.R. 2631, a bill disapproving the President's…”

“I rise to urge all Members to vote to override the President's veto of H.R. 2631, a bill disapproving the President's line item vetoes of the Military Construction Appropriations bill. Mr. Speaker, I do this for three simple reasons. First, in his first- ever use of the line-item veto on an appropriations bill, the President used this new power in this instance carelessly and casually without doing his home work. The administration did not even consult with the Pentagon. The administration admitted making several mistakes. The President said he would correct these mistakes by putting these projects in the fiscal year 1999 budget. Well, we have just received the fiscal year 1999 budget, and only one of the 38 projects that he line-item vetoed was put in his budget proposal, so he has not corrected his mistake. We simply want to make those corrections today. Second, according to the Pentagon, all of these projects are executable and address valid and military requirements. By executable, I mean they are executable in this fiscal year. In fact, we ran all of these projects through the Defense Department and not one raised any objections. Nearly all of these projects are in the Pentagon's 5-year plan. Each of these 38 project were scrubbed very carefully by our subcommittee. Finally, all of these projects were approved by the authorizing committee and fall well within the budget limits set by Congress. There is absolutely no wasteful spending.”