Political Quotes

“the Iranian hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan helped produce a consensus for higher defense spending and a landslide victory for the GOP in 1980. But instead of concentrating on the ability to fight terrorism and conventional wars, Ronald Reagan used his mandate for a stronger military indiscriminately. He poured billions into strategic nuclear weapons and space-based missile defenses designed for all-out war against the Soviet Union, and instead of focusing on improving the combat capability of conventional and special operations forces, Reagan chose to fund expensive and complex new weapons programs based on unproven technology. The result was a larger military that required unsustainable levels of resources, and the country is still dealing with the consequences of that debt. Today, once again, the Republicans are doing little to address legitimate concerns about the readiness of our troops. Instead, they are proposing massive increases in defense spending to field super-sophisticated weapons, including space-based defenses designed for the cold war. I call on my Republican colleagues to stop and think about what the country's real defense needs may be. We need the best trained and equipped soldiers in the world, not another 30-50 billion dollar's worth of work on star wars systems that wouldn't work even if they addressed a real threat. Let us not make the same mistake twice and dig our country deeper into debt.”