John Spratt: “I want to address in the time allotted to me a common misperception now out in the public and a misstatement that is…”

“I want to address in the time allotted to me a common misperception now out in the public and a misstatement that is likely to be made a number of times before this debate is over, and that is that the reason this budget is stretched so tight that it is so difficult to come up with extra funds to do things we would like to do is that the Clinton administration has not asked for more money for national defense. In fact, the facts tell a different story. Last year's budget resolution in the last Congress was the last blueprint we received from the Republicans on what they would spend on national defense. That resolution spelled out, budget function by budget function, what every different function would be funded at. And for the function we call 050, which is national defense comprehensively, the Pentagon and the Department of Energy both, the requests over 5 years, the amount of money allotted to national defense over 5 years in that budget resolution was $1 trillion 371 billion.”