John Spratt: “I will guarantee you the people do not know what is going on. Until I got back this afternoon, I had to go home and make…”

“I will guarantee you the people do not know what is going on. Until I got back this afternoon, I had to go home and make a speech and started reading some of these dailies that we get over our fax machines and got some phone calls from others who had found out, pieced it together. I did not know about it, so I am sure the American people do not know about it. Let me just take a second, if I can, maybe a minute or two, and read from the memo that was given to us as conferees just as to what the personnel provisions of this bill are. For the most part, these will not be backstopped by overlapping provisions in the appropriations bill. It simply will not be done unless and until this bill for 2006 is enacted. I already mentioned a pay raise of 3.1 percent to all servicemembers. I mentioned the increase in end strength needed for our stretched-out ground forces. The death gratuity is raised substantially to $100,000, but, even more important, provided for retroactively to October 7, 2001. And we remove, and only we can do this, we remove the combat- related requirement for the death gratuity. TRICARE, I mentioned the changes there. In addition, there are some other changes for TRICARE Reserve Select. It enhances that coverage, not as much as we wanted; but it is better than what we have got. Enlistment bonuses, the authority for those is increased substantially. We have got recruitment problems. We have retention problems.…”