On the recordMarch 24, 2015
I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, Mr. McClintock is right about this OCO slush fund. To the chairman of the committee, you actually made exactly my point in your remarks. I did support the OCO money--again, this is for overseas contingency operations--at the level requested by the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, our military commanders. It was higher a couple of years ago because we had tens of thousands more troops in Afghanistan. The gentleman may recall that we brought a lot of those troops home. As a result of that, we don't need as much money in our war account, the overseas contingency account. So what I did, Mr. Chairman, is exactly what our Republican colleagues on the Budget Committee said we should do at that time; in other words, I opposed increases above the levels the administration and military commanders said were needed to carry out those operations. Yes, I did support a budget level at the level the President and our military commanders said was necessary, but as Mr. McClintock said, the Republican budget does just the opposite. It does what we said we would not do--and I say ``we,'' Republicans and Democrats alike. So it is important to heed our own words; otherwise, as the Budget Committee itself said, we will undermine the integrity of the budget process. That was the point Mr. McClintock was making as well. I now yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr.…
