Political Quotes

“I want to follow up on his point about the perception of the American people that somehow we have dramatically increased defense spending over the past several years. Unfortunately, I think part of that perception has been created by the White House itself. Let us go back. The gentleman talked about some of the things that have taken place in terms of cutbacks. Let me highlight a few other facts that our colleagues need to keep in mind tomorrow as we begin the defense bill. During John Kennedy's era, that was at a time of relative peace, it was after Korea and before Vietnam, we were spending 9 percent of our gross national product as a Nation on the military. We were spending over 50 cents of every Federal tax dollar coming into Washington on the military, nine percent of our GNP over 50 cents of every tax dollar. In this year's budget, we are spending less than 3 percent of our GNP on defense; 16 cents out of the Federal tax dollar will go toward the military in this next fiscal year, 16 cents and dropping.”