Tom Harkin: “I think the analogy that the Senator from Delaware uses is totally wrong. Let me provide, I think, a more correct one.…”

“I think the analogy that the Senator from Delaware uses is totally wrong. Let me provide, I think, a more correct one. This amendment in no way limits how much total defense dollars we can provide to these three countries--not at all. It simply says, whatever their national budget, we will only pay 25 percent. So the Senator's analogy that we are somehow going to cap defense spending is not right. A better analogy, if I might say to my friend from Delaware, is this. We do have a defense budget in the United States. It is $260 billion. Let's say that for national emergency reasons, or whatever threat might come up, we have to increase it to $300 billion a year. But what we are going to do is tax the citizens of Delaware for half of it, and then we will spread the other half among the other 49 States of the Union. That is the more correct analogy as to what my amendment seeks to do. My amendment in no way limits the total amount of defense money spent on these three countries.”