Tom Harkin: “Let me clear up a misconception, Mr. President, which I think that the Senator from Texas has on this defense spending.…”

“Let me clear up a misconception, Mr. President, which I think that the Senator from Texas has on this defense spending. Quite frankly, I want to make the point again that the Star Wars Program was not cut. It was increased by $513 million over last year. That is really the issue. Do we want to keep pouring money into the old Star Wars Program, Edward Teller's dream, lasers, x-ray particle beams, star wars and all that kind of nonsense? We have put $32 billion into star wars, and what do we have to show for it? Not a thing. What if we were to put that $32 billion into high-speed rail, into clean energy systems, or into education and better schools for our kids in this country? Then we would have something to show for it. That is not enough for the Senator from Texas. Oh, no. He wants another $500 million to go into the Star Wars Program. I am sorry. My goal is not cutting defense. It is cutting the old Star Wars Program. That is what we are doing here with this amendment. We are putting it into fighting drugs and fighting crime through the Byrne Program. Second, I hear all this talk about cutting defense and cutting defense. The fact is that since the cold war started, there have been 16 years during the height of the cold war when we spent less money on defense than we are doing today. We are spending more, but the Soviet Union no longer exists. There is no big threat to the United States security. And the only years in which we spent more were during the Vietnam war years.”