J. Exon: “Madam President, the amendment I have just sent to the desk is on behalf of myself, Senator Bingaman, Senator Kohl…”

“Madam President, the amendment I have just sent to the desk is on behalf of myself, Senator Bingaman, Senator Kohl, Senator Dorgan, and Senator Levin. This amendment reduces--Madam President, reduces--the total funding level in the bill by $4 billion. This would still allow, I emphasize, this would still allow an increase--increase--in the President's request of $9.0 billion. A $9 billion increase would be allowed even if the Exon amendment is accepted. This is an increase of $155 million --an increase of $155 million--above this year's funding level. To put that in perspective, I have a chart to which I will direct the attention of the Senate. It is headed ``Comparison of the Fiscal Year 1997 Defense Spending Proposals.'' Billions of dollars are on the left side, with the first graph showing $263.2 billion, which would be if we had just taken the whole defense budget and froze it at last year's level, $263.2 billion. Under the Exon proposal, from the standpoint of last year, there would be an increase of something around $200 million or up to $263.4 billion, an increase of about $200 million still going up in national defense over last year's expenditures.”