Barney Frank: “Mr. Chairman, I am sorry my friend the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) cannot join me in supporting the Clinton…”

“Mr. Chairman, I am sorry my friend the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) cannot join me in supporting the Clinton administration on this issue, but maybe he will come back on a later one. The Clinton administration did ask for a significant increase. I think they asked for too much. But I am still prepared only to cut back to even a little bit above what they asked. Now, I acknowledge that the Department of Defense does not have everything it would like to have. It does not have all of its proposals. Neither does the Department of Health and Human Services. They do not have enough money to pay for prescription drugs for all the people. Vote against this amendment and then go and tell the elderly people in their district that they cannot do a prescription drug program the way they would like it because we cannot afford it. Now, I want to help the living conditions of the people in the military. If they would listen to this debate, they might not know that we buy weapons, and not only that we buy weapons, but let me quote here a former presidential candidate, the Senator from Arizona, who talks about all the pork that gets put in. There were weapons in here that no one asked for except the people in whose districts they are made. I am talking about 1 percent of the budget, 1 percent of the $309 billion.”