Congress needs to move quickly on Defense Appropriation Act
There are no comments for this page [ Add Comment ]Wednesday, September 5, 2007
By Rep. Rob Bishop
Guest commentary
Less than four weeks ago the House passed the Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2008. It's about time. We could have passed it several months ago if the congressional leadership had not been so preoccupied with trying to micromanage the war in Iraq.
This bill could have been much worse. On the positive side, it provided one-year funding for the next generation F-22 and F-35 fighters. On a more local level, the bill also provided funding for Utah projects, such as $2.3 million for the Space Dynamics Laboratory at Utah State University for research and development on reconnaissance spacecraft, and $2 million for engineering-related information technology programs at Hill Air Force Base.
However, the bill was also flawed. For example, the Democrats took $140 million from missile-defense programs at the very time we're facing increased missile threats from hostile regimes like North Korea and Iran. Overall, it shortchanged the president's defense request by $4 billion in fiscal 2008. Every appropriations bill from the House has significantly spent more than even President Bush requested, except for one -- the bill that provides for the defense of America. The Democrat leadership played a shell game, and shifted defense money over for such things as programs for illegal immigrants.
Other Democratic cuts included a $5.7 billion cut in operations and maintenance accounts, $433 million cuts in the Army Future Combat System program, $80 million in cuts for the next-generation Global Positioning System (GPS), and significant reductions to defense science and technology programs. The amount spent on our national defense, as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), has already gone down alarmingly since the 6.8 percent of GDP spent in 1986. The current 4.2 percent of GDP is even less than the military spending during the "hollow military" days of Jimmy Carter in 1978!
Our pilots are flying military aircraft well beyond their original life-cycles and we're having to stretch out production of newer replacement aircraft due to funding cuts. These cuts made more likely by Democratic spending priorities threaten the well-being of our all-volunteer armed forces and threaten vital defense modernization and recapitalization, training and quality of life.
Our troops deserve better than theatrics and legislative publicity stunts. Without a final House and Senate version of the spending bill passing, there are dire consequences for thousands of defense programs that outlast the next election cycle.
They have profound implications for the strength of the United States to withstand future threats.
The congressional summer recess ends this week. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I will be anxious to join with my like-minded colleagues on both sides of the aisle to urge quick action in the Senate and to get a military funding bill to the president's desk by the Oct. 1deadline. I urge the House and Senate Democratic leadership to develop the same sense of urgency. The new fiscal year starts Oct. 1, and the Democratic-controlled Senate has only passed one out of the 12 annual appropriations bills needed to keep the government running, and it has yet to act on defense.
This is no way to run a government or support our troops.
The clock is ticking very loudly and no less than the future strength of our nation's military might is at stake.
Bishop represents Utah's 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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