mr. chairman , i thank the gentleman for yielding me this time .  first , i commend the gentleman from north carolina ( mr. watt )  for offering a budget alternative .  i know that the gentleman and his staff , along with the other members of the congressional black caucus , worked very hard to put this budget together .  working on the committee on the budget this year , i realize how difficult it is to get agreement on the type of budget we need .  even to get a small group of people to agree on a budget is very difficult , so i commend the chairman of the congressional black caucus for putting this together and i certainly respect what the gentleman has done .  but on so many issues we have disagreement on the content of the budget .  first , i do not think we need to raise taxes at a time when our economy is trying to get its footing back .  and at a time of war , we need to fully fund defense and homeland security .  we have so many needs in this country that we have to fund and so many priorities that we must fund .  i think our budget that we produced out of the committee on the budget is well balanced .  i think it is appropriate for the time we are living , the time of war , the time of very strong homeland security needs , and we need to properly fund those items , which i believe our house budget that we produced out of the committee on the budget does .  so i am very proud of the work that the gentleman from iowa ( mr. nussle )  has done to get a balanced approach for our budgeting .  i would like to talk more about the qualities of our house budget that we have on the floor today .  i think that is why we need to pass that budget unamended .  first , our house budget fully funds the defense budget request of our president .  there is a 4.8 percent increase , which totals $ 419 billion in defense spending , and a net increase of 2.3 percent in nonmilitary appropriated accounts for homeland security , including $ 32.5 billion for the department of homeland security .  but furthermore , i think it is important that we talk about what it does for veterans .  with veterans i have a chart here today discussing , showing our increase in veterans programs and the spending we have increased in veterans programs .  there is a rapid increase in veterans spending especially during this time of war .  we are funding veterans programs appropriately in this congress .  we are funding more veterans health care programs .  we are doing more for those serving to defend our country .  the current house budget we have will increase veterans program spending to $ 67 billion .  i think that is a move in the right direction .  furthermore , spending per veteran has increased to $ 2 , 700 per veteran .  i think it is appropriate to notice the rapid rise in veterans spending .  so we are funding priorities .  this budget , although restraining nondefense , non-homeland security discretionary spending , and taking on mandatory government programs and finding savings , although slight , we are finding savings in those programs that will enable us to keep continuing to cut taxes and enable us to avoid raising taxes at the same time .  mr. chairman , as i said , i thank the gentleman from north carolina ( mr. watt )  for offering this budget alternative .  i respect what the gentleman is trying to do , but we have different ways of achieving the same result of funding the priorities and helping the american people .  