House passes largest defense budget boost in decades

$383 billion bill includes weapon Pentagon has rejected

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Originally published Friday, May 10, 2002

WASHINGTON -- The House passed the biggest increase in military spending in decades early this morning. The new defense budget includes $11 billion for a new mobile artillery cannon the Pentagon doesn't want.

Lawmakers voted 359-58 to send the $383 billion measure outlining 2003 defense spending to the Senate.

Armed Services Committee Chairman Bob Stump, R-Ariz., said the bill provides the largest real boost in Pentagon spending, in inflation-adjusted dollars, since 1966.

"We are starting to dig out of the budget hole we created after 13 years of budget cuts," Stump said.

Across Capitol Hill, the Senate Armed Services Committee completed work on its defense authorization bill.

Behind closed doors, senators agreed to about $1 billion less in missile defense spending than President Bush requested and put off their debate over the politically popular $11 billion Crusader cannon until next week, Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., told reporters.

The White House Budget Office said President Bush's advisers would recommend a veto if the spending bill tells him not to cancel the politically popular $11 billion Crusader cannon now in development.

In the House, Democrats fumed about exemptions the bill gives the military from major environmental laws.

But Republican leaders beat back their attempt to force votes on the environmental provisions and on various other proposals concerning U.S. nuclear weapons policy, base closures and missile defense.

Several Democratic proposals were defeated on largely party-line votes. They included efforts to prohibit the use of nuclear bombs to demolish deeply buried military facilities, bar spending on space-based national missile defense programs and allow female troops posted overseas to obtain privately paid abortions at military hospitals.

The House legislation would authorize accelerated development of unmanned surveillance planes and billions for a new generation of stealth jet fighters and fighting terrorism.

The bill also includes an increase of almost 1 percent in military personnel across the four armed services and new benefits for troops.

And though Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld announced this week plans to cancel the self-loading Crusader artillery program in favor of more-futuristic arms technologies, the legislation includes $475 million for the gun's development. The bill also contains nonbinding language directing the Pentagon not to kill the program until the Army has given Congress a study on alternatives.

Those in Congress whose states stand to benefit from the Crusader have promised to fight the Pentagon decision.

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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