Political Quotes

“Let me talk for just another minute or two about the missile defense programs, because Secretary Perry went over that the other day and he has a word that he likes to use. It is called robust. Robust is a pretty subjective term, and something that is robust to one person may not be robust to another, so I want to talk about the real funding levels that President Clinton put out on the table in today's budget, this year's new budget, with respect to missile defense. We all know missile defense is important, both theater missile defense, that is when you shoot down the slow-moving missiles before they come into your troop concentrations, like the Scud missiles coming into our barracks in the Middle East during the Desert Storm, and you also want national missile defense that will shoot down fast-moving missiles that are coming into your cities, whether by accident or by design. Mr. Speaker, the President's request for missile defense in this year was $2.9 billion. That sounds like a lot, and that has been described by Secretary Perry as robust, and I guess compared to the rest of the President's defense slashes that may be robust, but this is the lowest amount requested since fiscal year 1985, which was the very first year that we started the SDI program, that is, the missile defense program.”