Byron Dorgan: “I want to observe--and I have done this for years that I have been in Congress--that we just finished a budget in which…”

“I want to observe--and I have done this for years that I have been in Congress--that we just finished a budget in which there was a lot of talk about reducing the Federal deficit, the need to reduce Federal spending, and the Defend America Act, or the National Missile Defense Program, is a program, according to the Congressional Budget Office, that just to build--not to operate, just to build--will cost between $30 billion and $60 billion. Now, the operational costs will be much, much greater than that. It seems to me the funding question ought to be posed and ought to be answered by those who bring a spending program to the floor of the Senate that says let us spend up to an additional $60 billion more on a program that I do not think this country needs because the National Missile Defense Program, or the Defend America Act, will not truly be an astrodome over our country that will defend us against incoming missiles.”