John Spratt: “This rule allows just 2 hours of general debate for a budget with $1.7 trillion of spending authority. That is a…”

“This rule allows just 2 hours of general debate for a budget with $1.7 trillion of spending authority. That is a travesty. Let me tell my colleagues how this kind of haste makes waste, just one way that you can mask the numbers in a debate so short about a matter so complex as the budget. This budget, as now drafted, this Republican budget resolution, means that our military personnel will not get the 4.4 percent pay raise that the Joint Chiefs of Staff asked for and the troops thought they were promised by the President and the Congress. The Republican resolution does provide extra money for defense, but nothing for an increase in military retirement benefits, nothing for extra pay raises to help retain critical personnel. Now, we were able to ferret this out because every pay raise requires a corresponding increase in the contribution to the military retirement trust fund, function 950 of the budget. Look at function 950 in their budget, the Republican budget. There is no entry, no adjustment, no provision for these major pay increases, these major retirement reforms that have been promised. They are in ours. We followed the President's lead. We did it right, they did it wrong. You pass this budget and everybody is on notice. Unless you do the numbers in this resolution over, you are breaking faith with our troops. You are denying them the pay raises and the benefits that they have been told were coming.”