Joe Cunningham: “I also would like to speak to the issue of what the minority talked about as far as the majority not supporting national…”

“I also would like to speak to the issue of what the minority talked about as far as the majority not supporting national defense. I can remember being on this floor, Mr. Speaker, when the majority, or the now-minority, turned their backs on our men and women in Desert Storm, would not support them, and yet we had debate on that issue. I can remember the first event that they brought up was homosexuals in the military, when the majority of military folks do not want homosexuals in the military. I remember that most of that same leadership, all of the leadership, voting for Clinton's tax bill, which cut defense $177 billion, and then also put the highest tax that they had ever had on the American people. They had increased the marginal tax rate of the middle-income taxpayer. Mr. Speaker, I can look, and when Colin Powell and Dick Cheney and then-candidate Clinton said that anything below $50 billion would put us into a hollow force, but yet these same Members that are now saying that they are hawks cut defense $177 billion.”