Mike Quigley Challenges Military Waste
At the beginning of this week, President Barack Obama proposed the largest military budget in American history. Obama is proposing that Congress devote $708 billion, more than than the TARP bailout fund, for just one year of military spending.
Obama may be a Democratic President, but many Democratic voters want to see military spending reduced, not increased. Reflecting this sentiment for fiscal responsibility in the Pentagon budget, U.S. Representative Mike Quigley spoke in the House of Representatives this week, calling upon his Democratic colleagues in Congress to push for cuts to ineffective and inefficient programs such as the ineffective missile defense program, in development for over 20 years without any reasonable belief in its ability to operate as promised.
Quigley said, “In a March, 2009, GAO report assessing selected weapons programs, researchers estimate that cost overruns totaled nearly $300 billion. GAO continued to recommend that DOD move towards sound, knowledge-based acquisitions. The President should continue on this path toward reform spending by recommending cutting programs like expensive warships, planes, and flawed missile defense systems that don’t help in the fight against terror. Congress must also reassert its constitutional right to provide for the common defense by denying money to produce any weapon before it is thoroughly tested. If we are smart with our dollars, we will not only be safer but we will be stronger.”
