On the recordJune 5, 2012
I appreciate the recognition and rise in strong opposition to the gentleman's amendment. The gentleman, during his debate, mentioned a penny of savings out of a significant sum of monies. I would point out in conjunction with the chairman's remark that the non-security programs in this bill for fiscal year 2013 are $188 million below current year level spending because the subcommittee and the full committee made discreet decisions account by account. Dependent upon nomenclature--and I don't want to get into a semantic argument--there may be some of these cuts that the gentleman proposes that touch what nominally would be considered defense accounts, but he also makes a point that he is going after non-defense discretionary spending. I assume because he has left defense harmless that he has never read an inspector general's report relative to any defense program in the United States. And he mentioned a penny in his remarks, and I find it curious that he could not find 1 cent of savings out of 1 dollar spent in a defense account. For that reason among many, I am strongly opposed to the gentleman's amendment. If we are going to, in fact, make an investment in this country and if we are, in fact, going to address our budgetary problems, everybody has got to be on the table with no exceptions. The gentleman's amendment, from my perspective, is a mistake, and I yield back the balance of my time.
