Jerry Lewis: “I could not admire more the work of these two gentlemen in terms of the efforts they make in that Committee on…”

“I could not admire more the work of these two gentlemen in terms of the efforts they make in that Committee on Appropriations on behalf of the country. There is not a responsibility at the Federal level that is more important, more significant to this country and to the world than the work of this subcommittee, where we either appropriate the money or we do not appropriate the money to keep America strong. In my time in the Congress, there has been nothing more important that we have done than to lay a foundation that causes us to be strong, as the one leader in the entire world. It is the result of their work that indeed the Soviet Union eventually collapsed. The pressure it put on that process brought an end to the East-West confrontation. I do not know how many trillions of dollars that effort has saved this country. The price of peace is great but, indeed, the price of not having it could be much, much greater. To suggest that we should continue to reduce this budget is almost laughable if it was not so important. Indeed, ladies and gentlemen, over the last 5 years we have reduced these budgets not by a billion dollars discussed here, but by $100 billion.”