Political Quotes

“I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chair, my amendment would reduce funding for the failed Ground- based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program by $404 million. This missile defense program was designed to intercept limited intermediate and long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles before they reenter the Earth's atmosphere. Now, a fine idea. But the only problem is that while this failed missile defense program rarely hits anything, it continues to cost taxpayers billions of dollars. If we're going to target wasteful spending, then a missile defense program that can't hit its targets is a good place to achieve taxpayer savings. This program has documented failure after failure. In a time of large deficits and increasing debt, Congress should have to justify every penny that we spend of taxpayer money, and there isn't any justification for spending an additional $400 million on a weapons program that simply doesn't work. Since 1997, the system has failed more than half its tests, missing its target 9 in 17 times. {time} 1750 The scheduled March flight test was cancelled because they're still evaluating the previous failures. Lieutenant General Patrick O'Reilly, the Director for the Missile Defense Agency, testified that the flight test failures weren't because of lack of funds. In fact, he said: I don't think those failures would have been avoided if we would have had a larger or a lesser budget than we had.…”