Tina Smith: “The bill before us delivers on each of the priorities that were developed by Senator Thurmond and members of the…”

“The bill before us delivers on each of the priorities that were developed by Senator Thurmond and members of the committee. In fact, every element of the list is embodied in direct actions taken by the committee. We made a commitment, and we delivered on that commitment. The committee bill authorizes approximately $264.7 billion in budget authority for the National Defense Program. Although this represents an increase of $7 billion from the administration's grossly underfunded request, it still falls short of fully meeting our military requirements. The situation in the outyears is considerably worse. Both the Clinton plan and the recently passed budget resolution fail to fund defense at a level that even keeps pace with inflation. We are on track for a major train wreck between defense requirements and resources. If we are to maintain any semblance of a stable defense program we will need to maintain the spending outlined in this bill, and revisit future years funding levels next year. Mr. President, there are a number of very important initiatives contained in this bill, which I would like to briefly summarize for my colleagues.”