Mark Dayton: “we are going to spend, in the next fiscal year, some $500 billion. That is a half trillion dollars, a huge amount of the…”

“we are going to spend, in the next fiscal year, some $500 billion. That is a half trillion dollars, a huge amount of the taxpayers' money; in fact, about one-fourth of all the money the Federal Government will spend for everything next year, including Social Security, Medicare, health care, and education. The purpose of these expenditures is to strengthen our national security for now and the future. The six priorities that were approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee, of which I am proudly a member, along with the Presiding Officer and others, reported in the bill before us unanimously by the committee, include such measures as combating terrorism and winning the global war against terrorism, supporting our military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, to sustaining the readiness of our Armed Forces to conduct the full range of military operations against all current and anticipated threats. It goes on to state: Another object is modernizing and transforming our Armed Forces to successfully counter future threats.”