Jim Inhofe: “I think it has to be clarified, and yet after we clarify it, I suggest the Senator from North Dakota will continue to…”

“I think it has to be clarified, and yet after we clarify it, I suggest the Senator from North Dakota will continue to use $40 billion. This is just not true. The Senator from Mississippi talked about, according to the figures of the administration, it was $24.2 billion. But I suggest that includes the SMTS program, Brilliant Eyes, which is funded separately, which can be taken off. It is closer to $18 billion. We do have an investment today in the program of $38 billion. Some people estimate it is more than that. Let us be conservative and say $38 billion in what we call the SDI program, which some people like to continue to use star wars to try to make the public of this country believe that this is some fantasy, that it is not real. It is not something we are handling today. The SDI program, we feel, helped end the cold war by 5 years. What kind of a value can we put on that? In fact, the Russian Ambassador to the United States, Vladimir Lukin, stated that if it had not been for SDI, the cold war would have gone on for 5 additional years.”