Extra Defense Dollars OKd
The House Friday approved a $6.5 billion bill to meet a shortfall this summer in the Pentagon's budget. It is expected to be sent to the White House next week.
The Republican-led House passed the supplemental spending bill 375-30, with the Democratic-led Senate expected to vote next week on the package worked out by House and Senate negotiators.
The measure is close to President Bush's request as lawmakers fended off the usual spending spree that comes on last-minute budget bills.
The bill provides $5.6 billion for various defense needs including training and equipment repairs, health-care costs and covering higher energy costs.
It also has $300 million to help low-income people pay heating and cooling bills, twice the amount Mr. Bush sought.
It includes $116 million to cover Treasury Department costs of mailing out tax-rebate checks this summer, the first installment of the 10-year $1.35 trillion tax cut Bush signed into law in June.
The bill bypassed the $1.3 billion that House Republican Whip Tom DeLay of Texas wanted for additional disaster relief this summer. DeLay's home district of Houston was pummeled — last month by Tropical Storm Allison, and he wanted to keep relief money flowing from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Additional FEMA money has been included in spending bills for next fiscal year that starts on Oct. 1.
The Bush administration has asked Congress to boost next year's military budget by an additional $18.4 billion, following a review of Pentagon spending needs by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
The figure would bring the administration's total 2002 defense request to $343.5 billion. That is 10.3 percent more than the $311.3 billion provided so far for this year — a far larger increase than he has sought for domestic programs.
Under the proposal, the Pentagon's budget would rise from $296 billion this year to $329 billion in 2002. The rest of the defense budget is mostly for the Energy Department's nuclear weapons program.
During his presidential campaign, Mr. Bush vowed to spend more money on defense, chiding his predecessor for allowing military readiness to slip.
Democrats have complained that because of Mr. Bush's recently enacted 10-year, $1.35 trillion tax cut it will be difficult to find enough money to pay for added spending for defense, schools and other needs without dipping into Medicare and Social Security surpluses. Democrats and Republicans alike are reluctant to do that.
The president had requested $325.1 billion for defense in the fiscal 2002 budget he released in April. But the administration had said that was a preliminary poposal pending Rumsfeld's look at the sprawling agency he inherited after Mr. Bush took office in January.
The new request for next year will include $4.1 billion for pay and housing and $2 billion for the military's rising health care costs, said a Pentagon official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
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Rumsfeld is continuing his review of long-term Pentagon strategy.
A study he requested, released last month, recommends spending an extra $35 billion over six years to expand the fleet of Air Force C-17 transport planes and accelerate development of a new generation of Army vehicles and unmanned spy planes.
It also recommends cutting the Air Force B-1 bomber fleet and the Navy's DD-21 next-generation destroyer program, while offering America's European allies a commitment to keep U.S. forces based in Europe but in smaller numbers. The United States now has 100,000 troops stationed in Europe.
The study by the Rand Corp. think tank recommended spending an extra $45 billion over the next six years, while making cuts for savings of $10 billion. The net result would be a $35 billion increase.
The study recommended establishing "regional joint forces" that would be capable of undertaking a wide range of small-scale operations in Europe, the Middle East or in Asia as well as full-scale combat. Each regional force would have to be big enough to prevail — when reinforced with what Gomperts called "contingency forces" from outside the region — in the largest plausible conflict.
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