US Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health, and Iraq Accountability Act, 2007

Floor Speech

U.S. TROOP READINESS, VETERANS' HEALTH, AND IRAQ ACCOUNTABILITY ACT, 2007

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Mr. HASTERT. I thank the chairman, and I rise today in strong opposition to 1591.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say to my friend from Wisconsin, I have a great deal of respect for the fights that he has fought on this floor for over 30 years, but we do disagree.

Supplemental spendings are intended to provide additional funding for programs and activities that are too urgent and pressing to wait for the regular appropriations process. To be clear, only emergency funds should be included in this supplemental. Period. So if Democrats are looking for an avenue to send money back to their districts, they should look to regular order.

Last year when the Senate tried to include over $14 billion in nonemergency funds in the supplemental, House Republicans demanded a clean bill. And when the House sat down with the other body to negotiate a final bill, we accepted nothing less than a supplemental free of unrelated and nonemergency funding.

Why did we do that? Because we wanted to pledge the faithful support of this Congress to the members of the armed services serving in harm's way. This legislation should remain focused on the needs of the troops and not become a vehicle for extraneous spending and policy proposals.

In yet another show of a different way, the same Members who screamed for a straight up or down vote on minimum wage legislation just 1 year ago are today trying to attach that legislation to a wartime supplemental. And the very Members who voted to reinstitute PAYGO rules just 2 months ago are here today casting fiscal responsibility to the wind.

This bill should be limited to necessary funding for our troops serving bravely in Iraq and around the world in the war on terror. I ask my honorable Democratic friends how the Democrats can on the one hand say they support our troops by providing them with money, but on the other undermine them by telegraphing a date for their withdrawal from Iraq.

Congress should under no circumstances micromanage the war and have politicians making decisions that should be left to our Commander in Chief and generals on the ground. Even The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, hardly supporters of this administration, have editorialized that this legislation oversteps the bounds of Congress and both support a Presidential veto of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose this legislation and think long and hard about its consequences. This bill is fiscally irresponsible; it holds our troops hostage to nonemergency spending and policy proposals, and it signals to the insurgents and terrorists around the world a lack of American will to do what is necessary to win the war on terror.

Vote ``no'' on H.R. 1591.

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