Christopher Shays: “This is a freeze amendment. This is an amendment that says we are going to spend no more next year than we spent this…”

“This is a freeze amendment. This is an amendment that says we are going to spend no more next year than we spent this year on defense. It is a recognition on the part of this Congress that we are slowing the growth of entitlements, we are truly cutting parts of domestic spending, and we are saying that the defense budget, which constitutes basically half of what we vote out and appropriate, should be under the same basic scrutiny. It is a recognition on the part of this Congress that we need to look at the fact that the cold war has ended and we are waging a different type of warfare. In many cases, it is an economic warfare. In many cases, it is a warfare against terrorism. This amendment is a recognition that we need to look at all our weapon systems and determine that some need to go forward and some need to be discontinued in terms of research and development but not deployment. It is a recognition that this Republican Congress will realize that a freeze is not a cut, as we have said when we have argued against domestic spending. It is a freeze. It is a recognition that we need to look at our defense budget with the same kind of scrutiny and desire that we have looked at other parts of the budget. It is a recognition that, if we are going to get our country's financial house in order, we cannot allow the defense budget to go up.”