Bush Inks Defense Spending Measure
President Bush on Wednesday signed into law a bill that gives him the tools he wants to wage an expensive, no-end-in-sight global fight against terror and possibly Saddam Hussein.
"Our nation faces grave new dangers, and our nation must fully support the men and women of our military who confront these dangers on our behalf," Mr. Bush said before signing the $355.4 billion defense-spending measure.
"The bill says America is determined and resolute to not only defend our freedom but to defend freedom around the world, that we're determined and resolute to answer the call to history and that we will defeat terror," the president told a Rose Garden audience of mostly uniformed military personnel, along with a handful of lawmakers.
The Pentagon money bill hikes spending by 11 percent overall – the biggest jump since Ronald Reagan was president. It funds a 4 percent pay raise for military personnel, construction of expensive new warships and the next phase of Mr. Bush's missile defense plan.
Mr. Bush also signed a $10 billion military construction bill that includes improved base housing.
The spending measures were the first of their kind to become law – three weeks after the start of the 2003 budget year.
Lawmakers who were deadlocked over spending decisions and anxious about midterm elections left Capitol Hill last week to campaign. They plan to finish the other 11 required spending bills in a lame-duck session after the Nov. 5 voting.
The defense bill, approved with overwhelming support to provide most of what Mr. Bush requested, increases spending by more than $34 billion over the previous fiscal year. The president sought $367 billion, but ran into bipartisan resistance to his proposal for a $10 billion fund he could tap without congressional input for combating terrorists overseas.
"It's the largest increase in defense spending since President Reagan was the president," Mr. Bush said Tuesday as he stumped for candidates in Bangor, Maine.
"Any time the United States of America sends our youngsters into harm's way they deserve the best pay, the best training and the best possible equipment. ... It doesn't matter how long it takes to defend freedom, we'll do it. ... We have a duty to future generations of Americans to make this land secure."
With a day of work in Washington sandwiched between campaign swings and other travel, Mr. Bush was urging the Senate later Wednesday to follow the House's lead and approve legislation to bypass a Supreme Court decision that struck down a ban of computer simulations of child pornography. Mr. Bush was hosting a private forum on the sexual solicitation and exploitation of children over the Internet, followed by the public address.
The events are a follow-up to the Oct. 2 White House Conference on Missing, Exploited and Runaway Children. Mr. Bush focused most of his attention and remarks at the time on kidnapped children but noted that during a single year one in five children between the ages of 10 and 17 are sexually propositioned online.
On Wednesday, he was also encouraging parents to teach their children about online safety.
"The threats to our children are found not just on our streets, but they're found in the technology which we use in our homes," Mr. Bush told the conference. "With expanding use of the Internet and the heightened activity of predators searching for underage victims, more children are being lured into harmful and even tragic situations."
In April, the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional and too broad part of a 1996 law intended primarily to stop pornography produced through computer wizardry that was not available when the court placed child pornography outside First Amendment protection in 1982.
Free-speech advocates and pornographers challenged the ban on material that appears to be a child in a sexually explicit situation or that is advertised to convey the impression that someone under age 18 is involved.
The bill Mr. Bush was promoting would prohibit the production, distribution and possession of any visual depiction, real or electronic, of prepubescent children engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
With the military moving toward a war footing with Iraq, the defense measure increases spending in almost every area, from weapons procurement to payroll. It includes a 4.1 percent pay raise for military personnel and almost all the $7.4 billion Mr. Bush requested to keep developing a national missile defense system.
The defense bill also provides $3.3 billion for 15 C-17 transport aircraft, $2.3 billion for two Aegis destroyers, $3.2 billion for 46 Navy F/A-18 E/F fighters and $3.5 billion to continue developing the Joint Strike Fighter. Another $249 million is allotted for Navy Tomahawk cruise missiles, a prime weapon in the Persian Gulf War.
Nonmilitary federal programs are operating on last year's budgets, under a fourth temporary funding bill that is good through Nov. 22.