J. Exon: “the Dole star wars bill the Senate is debating is a reckless and expensive attempt to recreate the nostalgia of the cold…”

“the Dole star wars bill the Senate is debating is a reckless and expensive attempt to recreate the nostalgia of the cold war through the regrettable and unwarranted use of fear and fabrication. Over the last several years, the majority has resolutely turned a deaf ear to the objections of millions of men, women, and children at risk while it continually snips away at America's safety net. But in a conversion worthy of Jekyll and Hyde, the majority is passionately arguing that we throw open the Treasury doors to create a new defense safety net to take the place of the social safety net it is intent on unraveling. Multibillion-dollar missile launchers will replace school lunches in this new gilded net. Guns in the sky will replace efforts to remove guns from our school playgrounds. Money that used to help the poor buy heating fuel in winter will now heat lasers orbiting the Earth. The underlying premise of the Dole star wars bill is that the ballistic missile threat targeted toward the United States is so great, so urgent that nothing short of a crash program similar to the race to the Moon in the 1960's will do. No cost to the American taxpayers is too great. No arms control treaty is too valuable. The siren call behind the Dole star wars bill is a seductive one indeed: If you believe in a strong national defense, then you must be willing to shield America against missile attack--a missile attack anywhere, anytime--regardless of the consequences.”