Speech by Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Florida), March 30, 2000

Speech by Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Florida), March 30, 2000
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I want to agree with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) that this is not an insignificant amendment. This is a major amendment. But here is what it does. It waves the white flag of surrender in the war against the drug lords in Colombia, which provide most of the drugs, illegal drugs that come into the United States. Now we want to wage the effort to eliminate those drugs at their source. This waves the flag of surrender.

I have already talked many times during the various amendments today about the money for Kosovo. This bill is not sending any money to Kosovo. The money spent in Kosovo was already spent. The President made that deployment without getting the approval of the Congress, but the money has been spent. The money was taken from the fourth quarter operations and maintenance accounts of the military services, which means, if we do not replace that money, they have to stand down their training activities for the last quarter.

This amendment is also very significant. It deals with military construction. It says that none of the funds can be used for construction outside of the United States or its territories or possessions.

I wonder if the gentleman from Texas is not familiar with the fact that we have 37,000 American troops in Korea, in and around Korea, in that region, 37,000 American troops. They need some medical facilities. They need some housing, some new housing. The facilities are very old in Korea.

The CINC who just retired from Korea has given us a substantial argument as to why there are military construction requirements in Korea. The new CINC, who has just assumed the job in Korea, has also told us that there are needs in military construction.

This amendment would prohibit us doing for our troops who are in Korea, whether they like it or not, and that is not one of the most favored deployed areas, those needed construction jobs. That to me is significant.

If we cannot take care of our own troops, and we have been there ever since the end of the Korean War, and it is at least a year-long deployment for most of the troops that are there, we cannot even consider supporting this amendment if we believe that we have a responsibility to the Americans who serve in uniform.

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And I urge a strong rejection of the Paul amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

As of March 31, 2000, this document was also available online at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r106:H30MR0-20: