Press Releases
July 22, 2004
Senator Conrad's Floor Statement on Defense Appropriations Conference Report
Today I want to discuss the defense appropriations conference report. I want to say upfront this legislation is extremely important. At a time when our soldiers are still in harm's way in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world, this legislation provides resources they need.
This bill is all the more important because costs of war in Iraq are spiraling upward. The GAO has just reported that there is a shortfall of over $12 billion in funding for war costs for fiscal year 2004. This is on top of the $87 billion supplemental that we passed last year. This year's defense appropriations bill makes $25 billion in emergency reserve funding for war costs available immediately, helping to cover this shortfall and ensure that our troops have what they need in Iraq.
It is important to note that much more is likely to be needed in 2005. CBO recently estimated that military operations in 2005 could cost $55-$60 billion. These estimates demonstrate that the Bush administration has failed to budget properly for the war in Iraq and continues to understate the likely cost of these operations.
While this defense conference report is extremely important, I want to make clear that I am deeply disappointed with the budget provisions that were added to this conference report behind closed doors by the Majority, without any debate in the House or Senate. In what I believe is an unprecedented move, the Majority has inserted deeming language into this defense conference report - setting the overall fiscal year 2005 discretionary spending level at $821 billion. This deeming language should have been debated in the Senate. It is entirely inappropriate to add this language outside the scope of conference without any debate by the Senate or by the Budget Committee. Clearly it was added because the Majority knows that members of the Senate will not want to oppose a defense bill while our troops are in harm's way.
This is no way to govern. It sets a terrible precedent. Since a conference report is not amendable, the Majority is effectively stifling the ability of the Senate to fully debate and amend the deeming language. But that seems to be the point here. The Majority does not want to give the Senate the opportunity to fully debate and amend this language.
We wouldn't be in this position if the Majority had passed a budget resolution this year. That is where the overall spending and revenue amounts are supposed to be determined. Yet, because the Majority's leadership has refused to restore a strong paygo rule that applies to both tax cuts and spending, the Senate has been unable to get an agreement on a budget. Despite the record deficits we now face, the Majority and the Bush administration are still fixated on passing more and more unpaid-for tax cuts. The Bush administration's fiscally irresponsible leadership is driving our nation's finances right off the cliff - and at the worst possible time, on the brink of the retirement of the baby boom generation. I mentioned that there was no debate on this deeming language. Governing this way is bound to lead to mistakes. In drafting this deeming language, the Majority has left out the firewall provisions that guarantee that the gas tax contributions of our nation's motorists will be used to finance the nation's highway and mass transit. We have had highway and mass transit firewalls in place for the last six years to ensure that funding for those programs is not diverted to other areas. But now, under this deeming language, the firewalls will be eliminated and those highway and mass transit funds could be pilfered to cover shortfalls in other areas of the budget. I think this is a significant mistake - a horrible precedent to set in advance of a highway reauthorization bill.
As I said earlier, the funding for our troops contained in this bill is very important. But I want to be clear how disappointed I am in the way the Majority is operating here and in the way they, along with the Bush administration, are dangerously undermining our nation's fiscal and economic security.
