headline

100-0 for clarity

October 4, 2001

The U.S. Senate demonstrated an admirable degree of statesmanship Tuesday. In two unanimous votes the Senate put the nation’s well-being above parochial interests and partisan politics.

At issue was a $345 billion defense spending bill, authorizing money for fiscal year 2002. The most remarkable part, however, occurred prior to the vote on the actual bill.

The defense bill is essentially a wartime measure, providing an 11 percent increase — $34.2 billion — over last year. The Senate passed it Tuesday by a vote of 99-0. (Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., who fainted at his desk earlier in the day, was absent.)

But before the Senate could address the defense bill, it had to deal with Republicans’ attempts to attach to it their energy program — including the contentious plan to drill in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — and a provision for the prison industry. Together they threatened to hold up the whole effort.

After a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, however, GOP senators joined their Democratic colleagues to vote 100-0 to set aside any delays and consider the defense bill itself.

It was entirely appropriate. As Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said, killing the defense bill over a partisan squabble would be "a horrible message to send."

Not that there is not plenty to argue about in the U.S. defense budget. Included in the bill is $8.3 billion for President Bush’s misguided missile defense program. And many of the military’s big-ticket weapons systems remain mismatched to the needs of the 21st century.

Three weeks after the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, however, is not the time to squabble over defense contracts. A unanimous vote was exactly what Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell need to show America’s allies — and its enemies. That message did not need to be cluttered up with domestic politics.

Drilling in the ANWR was a bad idea before Sept. 11, and it remains a bad idea today, but it should be dealt with on its own. Piggy-backing it or the prison measure onto the defense bill to take advantage of a crisis only muddies the issues.

The next step in realigning America’s military to meet the realities of today will require another round of base closings. The Bush administration supports that, and the Senate’s bill makes provisions for it. It is now up to the House to show the same clarity of purpose as the Senate.