Patricia Schroeder: “I am here to talk a bit about what we are getting ready to do today. We are getting ready to go into the Defense…”

“I am here to talk a bit about what we are getting ready to do today. We are getting ready to go into the Defense Department authorization and I want to know, where are the budget hawks? Where are all these people who have been talking about the deficit? Because when we look at where we are, it is really very, very troubling. Let me show my colleagues some charts. Everybody has their charts and I did not come unprepared. If we look at this and we look at the United States, which is the blue line, that is where we are spending. If we look at the red line, that is where Russia is spending. As we can see, when the cold war ended, their spending melted down. Not us. We keep right on spending. Even though we talk about the deficit, we do not do anything when it comes to the defense bill. Then we look at threat potentials, at the United States and what we are spending on defense, here is what Russia spends, here is what China spends, and here is what a whole range of other countries spend: Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Cuba. Either we are not spending very well or something is really wrong. We are spending an awful lot of money on stuff that there is some question about. What do I think the real problem is? In Great Britain they are talking about mad cow disease. This Congress has sacred cow disease. They see the Defense Department as the biggest sacred cow around here, and they will not allow anybody to touch their sacred cow. So, everybody, watch.…”