Charles W. Stenholm: “the approach that we are taking to financing the war on terrorism is penny wise and pound foolish. Everyone acknowledges…”

“the approach that we are taking to financing the war on terrorism is penny wise and pound foolish. Everyone acknowledges that meeting all of our challenges in the war on terrorism will require substantially more resources than this bill provides. In fact, the President's chief of homeland security has said that he will recommend significant increases in funding for agencies involved in the war on terrorism. Yet today we are being asked to pretend that those costs do not exist so that we can make the budget look better artificially. Deferring a full discussion on the costs of combating terrorism at home and abroad until next year will result in higher spending levels and budget deficits than would be the case if we honestly accounted for these costs up front. Failing to honestly budget for the costs of the war on terrorism will allow us to pretend that we can afford other tax cuts or spending proposals that are unrelated to the war on terrorism. When we are presented with the inevitable supplemental early next year to finance the needs not addressed in this bill--which will in all likelihood have a higher price tag than it would if we addressed those needs now--we will find that we need to use borrowed money to pay for the war because we have spent all of our resources. Our objective must be winning the war against terrorism without jeopardizing the economy.”