House OKs Extra $9.5 Billion for Defense

The House on Tuesday approved a bill to pump up the Pentagon with an extra $9.5 billion for bombers, missile defenses, fighters and readiness money, funds eagerly sought by House Republicans.

The House voted, 219 to 203, to keep $553 million in the $267-billion defense authorization for next year to sustain the B-2 bomber production line and allow for procurement beyond the 20 planes that the Clinton Administration had sought.

Supporters said more B-2 bombers are needed to fly anywhere in the world to fight the early days of a Persian Gulf-like war and said B-2s save lives because they have a crew of only two and evade enemy radars.

But the White House and Defense Secretary William J. Perry said the additional cost would take money from necessary defenses.

“While asking more of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, the Administration has simultaneously given them fewer tools to work with, fewer troops, fewer new weapons, fewer training opportunities,” said Rep. Floyd Spence (R-S.C.), chairman of the National Security Committee. The bill, he said, would reverse “a decade of defense decline.”

The House bill amounts to about a 4% increase over President Clinton’s $258-billion request for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.