Tom Harkin: “The Senator says approximately $1 billion per year we spend on furnishings. I am not certain. I take his word for it. I…”

“The Senator says approximately $1 billion per year we spend on furnishings. I am not certain. I take his word for it. I would have to look at every function to see. But again there is not any specific line item that says furnishings that we can go after. So really what he is digging into is all of the different functions. It could come out of education. It could come out of health, the FBI, the Justice Department, and prosecutions. Everything this could come out of. the Senator's amendment does not really distinguish the source. It says everything is equal out there; this cuts across the board. My amendment specifies exactly where that money would come from. We had $2.74 billion for the old Star Wars Program last year. The President has asked and this budget includes an increase over that of about $513 million to $3.25 billion. Again, the very accounts that the Senator from Washington is going after have all been frozen or cut in previous years. Here is one account that was not cut and was not frozen. That is star wars. It is increased by $500 million. So what I have done is I have carefully drafted my amendment to say we will take it from the Star Wars Program, $513 billion. That will still leave $2 billion for theater missile defense programs to go after the real military threat out there. That is the time of Scud missiles, the theater missile programs that we need.”