Mark Hatfield: “very briefly, I think you would not find a Member out of the 100-person body who would not be supportive of the…”

“very briefly, I think you would not find a Member out of the 100-person body who would not be supportive of the objective that has been stated so clearly by the Senator from Nebraska, the Senator from Colorado, and their associates. But I point out again this is not a matter of whether we want to reduce, or we are capable of reducing the deficit. It is a matter of priorities, of where we make the cuts. Again, I emphasize the Kerrey-Brown, et cetera, amendment takes all of the reductions out of the nondefense discretionary programs. Conversely, to make my point, my amendment as a substitute takes all of the reductions, and we get in fact to the same 5-year period, $96 billion as against $94 billion, exclusively from the defense discretionary funds, including the exotic weapons, the B-2, Trident submarine, aircraft carriers--all of these weapons systems that were designed, devised as a strategy during the cold war and during the threat of the Soviet Union. I am suggesting that it is a matter of priority. That happens to be my priority. There may not be another Senator in this body who would agree to my priorities but those are as much my priorities as the priorities that have been embodied in the Kerrey-Brown proposal. What I am suggesting is simply we ought to update the strategy of our defense and military weapons systems necessary to sustain that defense under a whole new world of geopolitics.”