John Spratt: “I support this bill, but I think an admonition about the budget is in order. We actually have one bill before us, while…”

“I support this bill, but I think an admonition about the budget is in order. We actually have one bill before us, while holding another in abeyance. The President requested a total of $396 billion for national security, primarily for the Department of Defense (DoD) and the nuclear weapons program run by the Department of Energy (DoE). The President asked us to set aside $10 billion of the DoD budget as a ``war reserve'' for actions in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the war on terrorism. For DoD, he requested a total of $379 billion, of which $10 billion is for the war reserve and $369 billion is the regular request. There are two reasons for keeping separate the $10 billion request. One is to earmark funds for the war on terrorism, the other is not to merge into the base budget funding that may be non-recurring. One of the bills approved by the House Armed Services Committee authorizes $3.8 billion, which is to be drawn from the $10 billion war reserve. But the $3.8 billion we are authorizing is actually part of the regular $369 billion request. In the main bill, we are authorizing DoD activities at the $369 billion level, but since $3.8 billion of the regular request is now being provided for in the other bill, we have $3.8 billion more in the main bill to be used for ships and other procurement needs, research and development, and member-interest items. Here are the problems with this approach.…”