50 Congressional Record articles (Duncan Hunter on the House Floor

[Page: H649](Mr . HUNTER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr . HUNTER . Mr. Speaker, for over a year President Clinton, then candidate Clinton, and now President Clinton, has been saying that he is going to tax the rich. He now tells us who the rich are: The rich include anyone who heats their home or drives a car in America.

IT'S CALLED PORKBUSTING, NOT GRIDLOCK (House of Representatives - April 02, 1993)

[Page: H1862](Mr . HUNTER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr . HUNTER . Mr. Speaker, I rise to answer the gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio] a member of the Democrat leadership who just took this well to criticize Republicans for standing firm against pork barrel spending.

This great economic stimulus package that you have touted includes bike paths in Puerto Rico, cemeteries, and fish atlases. It is pure pork, and the Republicans who are fighting this are porkbusters.

Our duty to the American people as Republicans is to stand firm against shams, and the Democrat economic package is a sham.

DO NOT SURRENDER OUR SOVEREIGNTY (House of Representatives - September 29, 1994)

[Page: H10255](Mr . HUNTER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr . HUNTER . Mr. Speaker, the President in sending GATT down in an attempt at the last minute to get it through is really doing a disservice to our country. He is doing a disservice particularly to the sovereignty of this country. Eighty-three of the nations that will be members of the WTO, the World Trade Organization, and that will be about two-thirds of the membership, have a record in the United Nations of voting more than 50 percent of the time against America.

What President Clinton is doing is giving away our strong right to bilateral negotiations in trade. He is surrendering that to a committee that does not like us very much. This President is sending our Government to the United Nations, our troops to Haiti, and our jobs to Japan.

THE D-DAY CELEBRATION--A REMINDER THAT PEACE IS PRESERVED THROUGH STRENGTH (House of Representatives - June 10, 1994)

[Page: H4299](Mr. HANSEN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.)

Mr. HANSEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California [Mr . Hunter ].

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to respond to the distinguished gentleman who just talked about the visit to the D-day celebration by Democrats and Republicans, and let me just say as one Republican that I concur in his statement that it is important to those who celebrate D-day to remember that this country needs to be strong, to remember that we preserve peace through strength, and from my perspective, I would like to see every single American go to Normandy and understand that the few dollars we save by cutting the defense budget may be paid for ultimately in American blood when we are found to be weak by an adversary or a potential adversary and that weakness is exploited.

I think D-day is a reminder to all of us that America needs to stay strong, and I am reminded that after World War II, after D-day, after we had the mightiest military in the world and we started to demobilize, General Marshall was asked one day, `How is the demobilization going?' He said, `This isn't a demobilization; this is a rout.'

I would suggest that what we are doing in slashing the defense budget, as we did yesterday, is exactly the same thing we did after World War II, and we are not going to be prepared for what happens in the Korean Peninsula and we are not going to be prepared for what happens in the Balkans, and it is going to accrue to the detriment of the American people.

I would like to see everybody in the White House, everybody in the administration, and every American have a chance to set foot in Normandy and understand what occurred and why it occurred.

AMERICA NEEDS MORE CRIME FIGHTERS, NOT MORE SOCIAL PROGRAMS (House of Representatives - August 18, 1994)

[Page: H8605](Mr . HUNTER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr . HUNTER . Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Schumer], has just blamed Charlton Heston for the failure of this pork barrel boondoggle that we humorously refer to as the crime bill. He even criticized Mr. Heston's role as Moses in the Ten Commandments.

Coming from his big government district in New York, Mr. Schumer probably would have preferred a movie entitled `Pharoah Knows Best.' Charlton Heston did not kill the crime bill. The American people looked at the promise of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Schumer] to make the rest of the country as safe as New York City, and the American people said `that is what we are afraid of.'

If pouring social programs into New York City solved crime, there would not be a single pickpocket left. Hug-a-thug does not work. We need more Ben Hurs, more Will Pennys, more Andrew Jacksons, and more Moseses.

COMMEMORATING THE SERVICEMEN KILLED IN SOMALIA (House of Representatives - October 03, 1994)

[Page: H10675]Mr . HUNTER . Mr. Speaker, since I have that time, before I yield to the gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] I want to answer perhaps part of the question for that father whose son was killed in Somalia.

Mr . HUNTER . Or the young man who has been shot in Haiti, and I think the answer has to do with priorities, and I think we can look back at liberal administrations since Vietnam, during Vietnam and since, and we have seen a situation in which typically politics has prevailed over the safety of American service people, and let me just say that in Vietnam many times our political leaders had a chance to end that war early, to do tough things with North Vietnam, to do things that were not diplomatically acceptable to them, and because of that there was only one currency that they were willing to expend in South Vietnam, and that currency was American soldiers, and because of that many times soft bodies of American G.I.'s ended up taking the hits when American bombing, and strategic positions and places, while it would have been done to the criticism of the world, it would have been attended by the criticism of world diplomats, nonetheless would have saved Americans from dying.

In Somalia we had basically the same thing where the American commander on the ground asked for armor. He asked for armor because he knew you had to have armor to get through the streets in Somalia in the urban areas because the other side has RPG's, rocket propelled grenades, and the thin-skinned vehicles that we had could not stand up to that----

Mr . HUNTER . And central command approved the request for armor, and it was briefed by Colin Powell to President Clinton's Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin, and it was turned down, and I am paraphrasing Mr. Aspin, `for political reasons.' It is because it would have made our military look `too militaristic.'

Mr . HUNTER . So once again American soft bodies were sacrificed because the prevailing sentiment in Washington, DC, in a liberal administration, and the overwhelming sentiment was in favor of diplomacy, in favor of world image, in favor of politics, and not in the best interests of our fighting people.

From your Link : “But one of the biggest problems in contractors’ and congressmen’s mutual back-scratching isn’t Duke-style corruption. It is what’s perfectly legal.”

“...citing several official letters praising Audre’s technology or endorsing automated document conversion.”

Followed by this claim

“But the preponderance of evidence...”

Funny thing, the only evidence cited in this OPINION piece was presented by Duncan Hunter backing his position.

I notice this is still the only thing you have to present about Duncan Hunter when you yourself state he has well over twenty years in office. Surely you can do better than this one thing huh?

Yep, and that investigation into Hunter is full steam ahead.

The lack of a known investigation may -- or may not -- have anything to do with the recent termination of the U.S Attorney in San Diego who prosecuted Cunningham and was reportedly in the process of an expanding corruption probe. Although I have no reason to believe that Hunter has done anything illegal, I question the ethics of any elected official who puts himself in the position of having to defend a "pork barrel contract" that effectively diverted millions of dollars of tax dollars to a campaign contributor in his district for something that the Department of Defense did not ask for, did not want, and did not need. That kind of spendthrift behavior is something that I would expect from Democrats, not from someone who calls himself a conservative.

Here. I’ll say it loudly: Hunter supports US manufacturers, he supports defense contractors, he supports buying much much more than the Pentagon wants or has budget for. He is THE favorite congressman of Defense contractors, large and small, for steering as much work their way as he possibly can. I worked for Boeing Defense and Space for years. We loved him there.

The same folks who holler that body armor wasn’t available or humvees weren’t ‘up armored’ enough etc etc, are often the same folks that will claim people, who actually support the idea that the military should have more than it actually needs, are doing a bad thing when they try to accomplish that very goal.

If anywhere in our Nation an excess is warranted, it is in our military preparedness.

I respect and appreciate your honesty. Unfortunately, there are 435 members of the House and 100 Senators and thousands of elected representatives on the state and local level who use our hard-earned tax dollars to fund local projects that they think are worthy or important, when in reality they are simply trying to bribe the voters with their own money, at best and/or thank campaign contibuters for their support, at worst. Either way, the cost to the American taxpayer is mega-billions and billions of dollars. IMHO, there is nothing conservative about forcing people to pay 30% or more of their hard-earned income to Congress so that the likes of Duncan Hunter can hand out our money to their friends. I know that pork has been a part of the American political scene since day one, and I know that little is likely to change except perhaps the rare corruption prosecution to keep the Congressional giveaway program from getting too out of hand, but I don't have to like it, and there is no way that I will ever support an unapologetic money-grabbing, spendthrift like Hunter no matter how much I may agree with many of his other positions.

“to their friends” in Duncan Hunter’s case means to defense contractors. Let me know if he has a Duncan Memorial Drive or a Hunter Botanical gardens named after him.

You can legitimately criticize him for going along with Bush’s prescription drugs plan or voting for the fat farm bill and such. But I will only give him respect for forcing the Pentagon to purchase more armaments then they (meaning the administration in power) request. He has consistently railed at the lack of military spending, not just to feed his friends contracts, but rather because he is a Hawk. Perhaps the most hawkish member serving.

He actually has a pretty decent record of fighting pork in his 26 years.

hand out our money to their friends.

I guess you don't consider a legal appropriation to our overall military establishment to be friendly....or that the military is your friend also.

unapologetic money-grabbing, spendthrift

Now if you are going to say that about Robert C Byrd, with several institutes, a bridge and other buildings as examples, you would be making an accurate statement.

To say that about Duncan Hunter with one opinion piece as example is nothing more than an attempt to demonize a candidate in a way that might influence people reading this thread.

Could you please provide several more examples of this "unapologetic money-grabbing, spendthrift" accusation to show me and others reading here that you have formed such a vitriolic position on more than just one opinion piece? I request that these examples be something pertaining to anything other than defense apropriations. Can you oblige me? Please?

If anywhere in our Nation an excess is warranted, it is in our military preparedness.

Please explain to us how Duncan Hunter helped to increase our military preparedness by using the "power of the pig" to steer a multi-million dollar defense contract to a campaign contributer for the digitalization of miltary records from the Panama invasion, particularly when the Department of Defense did not request, did not need, and did not want the expenditure. Seems to me that he undermined our military prepardness by wasting millions of dollars that should have been used to directly support our troops and their mission. Going back to the point I raised yesterday, this is one the major problems with career politicians. After spending decades inside the beltway where they can make and play by a different set of rules, they become so out of touch with reality that they are unable to differentiate between absolute "needs" and discretionary "wants."

Digitally preserving records is a great idea. I have two words why. SANDY BERGER. Saying that Duncan Hunter “undermined our military prepardness” exposes you as being nothing more than a hater because you undoubtedly support someone else.

That is as rediculous a statement as one can make IF someone actually read a bit about this man before making such such claims about them based on ONE example.

I get it, you read one opinion piece and so Duncan Hunter is the Devil to ya. I can’t wait to see who you actually support for President.

opposed opening the books on pork

Duncan Hunter on banning earmarks: No. The Constitution gives to Congress the charge to build the defense budget. As you know, I'm the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee. The entire budget and the idea that we're no longer supposed to build the entire budget, we're supposed to accept as sacrosanct the budget comes over from a political process in the Pentagon, number one, goes against the Constitution and abandons our Constitutional responsibility. Number Two, it takes away the judgment of members who have been examining defense issues literally for dozens of years. The average experience level on my Armed Services Committee is in excess of ten years. The average budget person who's working in the Pentagon has been there for about a year and a half.

Let me give you some examples of things that I have added to the budget; in fact, I publish mine on the internet. I call them congressional initiatives because I think that earmark is a pejorative term. I put in an additional 10 million dollars for jammers to defeat road-side bombs, portable jammers. The Pentagon didn't have any jammers that could be carried by infantrymen. That meant they had nothing for the troops. I put in 10 million dollars and we built and deployed jammers for our dismounted troops within 70 days. We did 10,000 of them in 70 days. Armored vests, additional humvees, a ship, the X-Craft which goes 60 miles an hour, which is manned by a crew of only 26 people, which is truly transformational of the US Navy, and which has been given glowing marks by former Secretaries of the Navy - that was added. Let me give you other things that have been added by Congress - an aircraft carrier when Jimmy Carter didn't want to put it in the budget, the B-1 bomber and the President didn't want to put it in the budget, so the point is that Congress is supposed to, and is charged, and the Constitution says Congress shall provide for the Navies, the equipping of the Navies, the Army, and by implication, the Air Force. It's our Constitutional duty...

“DUNCAN HUNTER (R-CA) Personal Financial Disclosures Summary: 2005 Agreements for Future Employment: 0

Compensation: 0

Gifts Received: 0 (Amount: $0)

Payments to Charitable Organizations in lieu of Honoraria: 0 (Amount: $0)”

I guess some people like to ignore the facts and just presume that everybody does it.

Thanks for posting those facts again. I had seen them before, but someone else might see them now.

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