On the recordDecember 20, 2012
I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining? The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Massachusetts has 5\1/2\ minutes remaining. Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, this is a moment of opportunity for us to get serious about dealing with our budget deficit by eliminating the bloat and the waste in the Pentagon's budget. What we have before us has some very good provisions in it, but it also has some very bad provisions in it. The gentlelady from California mentioned the language on Guantanamo, which is unfortunate. But this bill also reflects more money--more money--than the Pentagon even wants, more money than the Joint Chiefs of Staff wants. So we're throwing more money into this Pentagon budget even though they haven't asked for it and they don't want it. At the same time, my friends on the other side of the aisle are proposing measures--which are going to be taken up in the next rule--to decimate the social safety net in this country, to make it more difficult for middle-income families, to make it more difficult to send your kids to school, to make it more difficult to get affordable housing, or to get access to food and nutrition if you are in desperate times. So it just doesn't make any sense to me. I mean, the idea that we're giving more money to the Pentagon than they want, but at the same time we're taking away from our people right here at home.…
