John Bel Edwards: “I am not going to take up 5 minutes because we had a discussion of this, but I would like to remind all Members what…”

“I am not going to take up 5 minutes because we had a discussion of this, but I would like to remind all Members what this is about. Because of what I think was a budget resolution passed on a partisan basis earlier this week, our subcommittee's allocation was $824 million less than President Bush said we needed to pay for VA health care, military construction, and defense health care. As a consequence of our rejecting on a bipartisan basis the administration's gimmick to try to find funding for defense health care, because we rejected the idea of having a 200 percent increase in TRICARE premiums for men and women who served our country for 20 and 30 years, we ended up with $735 million less for defense health care spending than President Bush, the administration, said we need. My amendment would put back that $735 million and would pay for it by asking those Americans during a time of war who made over $1 million a year to accept a $112,000 tax cut on average rather than a $114,000 tax cut. I think that is a fair request given Americans' principle of shared sacrifice during time of war. Let us ask those making over $1 million a year to give up less than 2 percent of their tax cuts in order to fund defense health care during a time of war at the level the President said was needed. Point of Order”