Political Quotes

“the $75 million increase to the Aegis BMD that the Democrats have spoken of here does not even fund the necessary upgrades to the Aegis weapons systems BMD signal processing capability necessary to keep pace with the evolving short-range and medium-range ballistic missile threat. So we are definitely not doing enough there. This $75 million increase to the Aegis ballistic missile defense budget that they speak of does not even cover the expenses incurred by the Missile Defense Agency to conduct a shootdown of the U.S. 193 satellite. This cost the agency approximately $100 million. My Democrat friends have often stated that far-term systems are much less important than near-term systems. So I believe it is reasonable to assume that the RTD&E accounts are the appropriate offset for such an amendment. The bottom line is this: A $9.3 billion request budget from the President has been decreased by $719 million. And in an age of missiles, as the ranking member mentioned, this is not a time to cut our missile defense capability. Missile defense is not only the last line of defense against an incoming missile, perhaps with a nuclear warhead representing the most dangerous weapon in the history of humanity, it is the first line of defense against proliferation. And, Mr. Chairman, proliferation I believe, given the examples that Mr. Lamborn mentioned of Iran and others, represents the greatest threat to human peace in the world today.”