Kay Bailey Hutchison: “I am one of the most prodefense people in this body and I think most of this bill is very good and very important. I am…”

“I am one of the most prodefense people in this body and I think most of this bill is very good and very important. I am going to speak on the part of the bill that I think is very shortsighted and will, in fact, hurt our readiness in the future if it is not fixed. I will continue to urge the committee to work to fix it because I do believe that all of us want a stronger national defense and we want the taxpayer dollars to be spent wisely. In fact, passing this bill will waste billions of taxpayer dollars, and those aren't my figures. Those are the figures of the experts. So why would we do that? Let me first say that the points that were made by Senator Kempthorne and Senator Cleland can be met. I agree with them. It is most important that the pay and compensation issues, the health care issues, the military construction issues be addressed. In fact, a clean bill has been introduced that would cover those items, that if this bill is vetoed by the President--which I hope it will be, so it can be corrected--we can take care of those very important compensation, health and military construction issues, and that bill has been introduced.”