Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2006

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006--Continued -- (Senate - October 06, 2005)

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Mr. DAYTON. I thank Senator Stevens for his support and assistance in this matter. I thank him and the ranking member and members of the committee and acknowledge in every one of these three areas the Senate Committee on Appropriations has added funding already above the President's recommendation. I recognize, also, that the committee is dealing with the budget constraints that were imposed upon it by the Senate budget, but conditions in the real world do not always conform to those constraints. This funding is essential to address these critical areas, beginning with an additional $40 million for the National Guard counterdrug efforts which would enable State coordinators to increase their border security, to increase reconnaissance, and to expand their effort to interdict the flood of illegal drugs into our country.

These National Guard antidrug efforts are under the control of the Governors and Adjutant Generals so they do not violate Federal passe comitatus laws. Yet they are essential to our national security.

Other than international terrorism, there is no greater threat to the safety, the health, and the well-being of our citizens than the increasing flow of illegal drugs into our country, into our neighborhoods, into our schools, and into our homes. They are destroying lives, they are destroying families, and they are destroying communities.

In my home State of Minnesota I am told by local law enforcement leaders there are direct pipelines of illegal drugs now, especially methamphetamine from Mexico, right into the State of Minnesota.

Border security is not just a Southern State crisis or a Northern State problem. Homeland Security is not just a Federal agency with increased priorities.

As I listen to local law enforcement officials throughout Minnesota, they say we are losing the war against these narcotics terrorists. We are losing because our resources are being overwhelmed by their resources. These are battles that are going on not halfway around the world but right here at home, right within our own country, every day and every night.

These are narcotics terrorists. They are drug-dealing gangs. They are dangerous predators. They are preying on Americans, young and old, rich and poor. They are pouring highly dangerous, very addictive, and corrosively expensive drugs into our country and our citizens' lives, and we are letting then get away with it.

In many cases they get away with it entirely scot-free and leave the country with millions and millions of our dollars. These are very dangerous, destructive, evil people who are winning the war on drugs in this country because we--all of us, collectively, all of us Americans collectively--do not have enough good guys out there on our behalf who are fighting them. My amendment brings more money for the good guys to win this terribly destructive battle.

Second, $50 million would go to increase the childcare services for military families. Again, I commend the committee, Chairman Stevens, for increasing the President's recommendation in this critical area. My amendment would add another $50 million because the Office of the Secretary of Defense currently estimates that 38,000 children of Active-Duty military families are not able to access military childcare because of the lack of spaces and facilities. This is especially critical because so many of these family members are being deployed for 12 or 18 months, leaving their spouses as single parents, financially strapped, needing to work and therefore needing quality childcare even more than before.

Finally, my amendment adds $10 million for family assistance centers and personnel who are responding to the increased needs of military families--Active-Duty, Reserves, and National Guard, whose families are being seriously and severely impacted by the increased number of deployments for extended periods of time.

The stresses of those long separations, the constant anxieties and uncertainties about the well-being of their loved ones abroad, the financial pressures, the difficulties emotionally of single parenting all add up and have put additional needs for these family assistance centers and their personnel for families while their loved ones are serving and after they have returned. And some wounded and seriously maimed are causing enormous family stress and strains for the next number of years.

I thank, again, the chairman, and I thank the ranking member for his willingness to consider taking this amendment into the managers' package. I commend them for their leadership in these very important areas. I hope this amendment will be seen as constructive to that, and I hope the conference committee will see fit to include these increases because I can assure all the Members that it will be very much needed and very well used.

I yield the floor.

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