Ron Kind: “It is a great question. No. One of the more frustrating aspects of the budget resolution debate that we had earlier this…”

“It is a great question. No. One of the more frustrating aspects of the budget resolution debate that we had earlier this year, the context of the tax cut debate that we had earlier this year was that there was in fact no provision, no asked-for appropriation for the ongoing deployment of a missile defense system within the administration. All this has got to add up. It should add up within the context of a balanced budget, one that does not jeopardize the fiscal solvency of the current generation or future generations. That again is more information which is lacking from the administration. Cost estimates that I am hearing from some of the engineers, some of the experts who would be in charge of deploying such a system, range anywhere from $100 billion to $200 billion over a 10-year period. I just had a conversation with former Senator Sam Nunn this afternoon. He said that whatever figure you get, you might as well double or triple that amount because it is going to be inherently difficult to do this in a fiscally responsible manner without the defense contractors opening up and the subcontractors wanting their piece of the deployment pie. But even more fundamentally, we have had test after test after test in trying to hit a bullet with a bullet, that is, the missile defense test. Each time it has failed. Obviously we do not today have the current technological capability to pull it off.”