John Bel Edwards: “let me make two comments. First, let me say I fully associate myself with the views expressed by my friend and…”

“let me make two comments. First, let me say I fully associate myself with the views expressed by my friend and colleague, the Representative of Fort Hood, Mr. Carter. We all should consider our troops as the number one priority in whatever decisions are made today. That is far more important than any technical budget issue that can be brought up, especially during a time of war. In terms of the gentleman from Georgia, he said that this budget provides the same amount of funding, in so many words, for defense health care as requested by the administration. I think if the gentleman will look more carefully into the budget request, what he will find is that, in addition to the appropriated funds, the administration had proposed an additional $735 million in fees that I hope this Congress will clearly, vociferously oppose. Our subcommittee certainly didn't endorse those fee increases. Those fee increases would put a 200 percent health insurance premium on men and women who have served our military for 20 and 30 years. But as a consequence of Congress not having made the decision and, in fact, the Armed Services Committee having passed a bill recently saying that we will not increase those fees, in effect, this bill will fund defense health care this year by $735 million less than President Bush said was needed to maintain our quality health care system for our troops and for our military retirees.…”