Dale Bumpers: “Rasputin was a piker compared to the National Endowment for Democracy. It took him a long time to die, and it has just…”

“Rasputin was a piker compared to the National Endowment for Democracy. It took him a long time to die, and it has just taken forever for this boondoggle to die. I have heard so many people in this body lament the size of Government, the waste of Government, the terribleness of Government, and here is $30 million of wasteful Government spending. There was actually an effort to get NED's appropriation up to $50 million 3 years ago. I can tell you that, in this Senator's opinion, the National Endowment for Democracy is without question the biggest waste of money I can think of next to the space station. That is saying something. It is a cold war relic. Everybody in this body knows that the National Endowment for Democracy was started in 1983 as an answer to communism in the world. We were not only spending $250 to $300 billion a year on defense at that point--that was not enough to contain communism around the world--we decided to add $18 million to bring democracy to the world.”