Thomas Foley: “the first priority of the Federal Government is to protect its citizens by maintaining a military strong enough to fight…”

“the first priority of the Federal Government is to protect its citizens by maintaining a military strong enough to fight and defeat any aggressor that threatens the United States. Since the end of the cold war the defense budget has been borrowed from to pay for social welfare programs and U.N. peacekeeping missions. As a result, our defense resources are at dangerously low levels. The Contract With America will put a stop to the practice of borrowing from the defense budget and reverse the past 2 years of neglect on this issue. H.R. 7 includes the strong sense of Congress to restore defense spending fire walls that prohibit the use of Department of Defense funds to pay for social programs unrelated to military readiness and restrict future defense cuts to deficit reduction purposes only. The thing that stirred me up so much, Mr. Speaker, was the fact in last year's budget we allocated $200 million for displaced Russian soldiers while our own Vietnam veterans are homeless in the streets of the United States of America. We cannot afford to become careless. The Federal Government has a duty to provide for the common defense of its citizens. I say to my colleagues, "I urge your support of H.R. 7."”