Elizabeth Furse: “I rise to support the Schroeder amendment for a 3 percent cut in this defense appropriations bill. I want to talk about…”

“I rise to support the Schroeder amendment for a 3 percent cut in this defense appropriations bill. I want to talk about budget priorities. I want to remind my colleagues that this Congress really only has power over discretionary spending. That is about 54 percent of the budget, and that 54 percent is divided equally, 50-50, between military and nonmilitary spending. Mr. Chairman, we have all heard all this talk about how we are gong to cut waste in this new Congress. We are going to balance the budget. But we may be surprised to hear that all of the cuts, all of them, I repeat, all the cuts, have come from nonmilitary spending. Did the military budget get a cut? No, it did not. In fact, it got a huge increase. Now, poll after poll shows that the average American wants Pentagon spending either kept the same or cut, but they do not want it increased. In this bill before us today, national missile defense--the true star wars--is actually increased 111 percent over last year's level. And one theater missile defense program--Navy upper tier--is increased almost 300 percent over last year. Mr. Chairman, I think this is wrong and I would submit that the American people might think this is a wrong use of their money.”