John Bel Edwards: “This bill funds military construction, which includes a lot of quality of life programs for our military men and women…”

“This bill funds military construction, which includes a lot of quality of life programs for our military men and women and their families. The funding level is $10 billion, and I am disappointed that the actual funding level is only a 1.6 percent increase over military construction last year, which after inflation is actually a real cut in military construction funding during a time of war. I think that is inexcusable given our war in Afghanistan and Iraq. This bill appropriates $489 million below what we actually spent for military construction 2 years ago before the Iraqi war even began. And even worse, it is $900 million below what President Bush said would be needed this year, just 12 months ago when he made that prediction. Despite the fact that we are actually increasing military construction, not even enough funds to make up for inflation, we have 39,000 Army families living in inadequate housing, 34,000 Army barracks are inadequate, 70 percent of Army facilities are C-3 or C-4, which means they are mission impaired, 16,000 Navy and Marine Corps families live in inadequate housing, 31,000 Air Force families live in inadequate housing.”