Maurice Hinchey: “old habits break hard. That is as true of nations as it is of people. We are in the habit of spending enormous amounts…”

“old habits break hard. That is as true of nations as it is of people. We are in the habit of spending enormous amounts of money on the military budget. Right now we are spending approximately the same amount as the next 10 nations combined. It is simply a prudent thing to freeze our defense spending at its present level. Some might argue that we ought to go far beyond that and reduce the military budget substantially. There are people in this town, responsible people who follow the military expenditures intimately, who would argue that you could safely cut $50 billion out of the military budget without affecting the security of this country one iota. No one there is proposing anything like that. They are simply proposing that we freeze military spending at its present level so that we can begin to establish some new priorities. Our priorities approximately have been to spend for the military, for the Second World War and for the cold war. All of that is behind us now. The major threats to our countries are within. We have schools in this country that are falling apart. We have children who are not getting decent education. We have people who need health care. We have roads and bridges which are falling apart. Half of the bridges in this country are below standards, below safety standards. Everywhere we look the basic infrastructure of this country is in dire need.”