Burgess Owens: “one speaker has implied that we are not serious when we offer this amendment because we know it is not going to pass. I…”

“one speaker has implied that we are not serious when we offer this amendment because we know it is not going to pass. I regret that it will not pass. We are reduced to a ceremonial action each year. Once again we are here to impose what I consider a civilized and reason-based ceremony on a very primitive Congress, which goes through a ritual of blindly authorizing more than $30 billion for a CIA that should have been streamlined and downsized at the end of the cold war. By the most conservative estimate in the New York Times, this is $30 billion that we are talking about. We ought to take 5 percent of that, which is $1.5 billion; $1.5 billion may seem like a small amount compared to the overall CIA budget, but our entire proposed initiative by the President on school construction was merely $5 billion over a 5-year period; $5 billion over a 5-year period, which means we could fund the school construction initiative out of this cut and still have $2.5 billion left over for other matters, like the empowerment zones in poverty areas. So we are talking about money that could do a great deal that is probably being wasted in a CIA that is unaccountable. The very basic but baffling instinct and superstition of this congressional village is to insist that tampering with the secret budget of the CIA is taboo. The CIA is untouchable. There is fear that dangerous, invisible demons will rise up and destroy our village if we disturb this almighty Washington wizard.”