Word: aspin
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...largest strategic missile in the U.S. arsenal, the MX has sparked one controversy after another over four Administrations (see box). The latest rescue effort waged in its behalf stems from a compromise reached last year with a group of House Democrats led by Les Aspin, the new (since January) chairman of the Armed Services Committee. At the time, Congress voted to set aside the $1.5 billion for production of 21 missiles but to hold the money in escrow for a year and then reconsider the project. One reason: Moscow was then boycotting arms talks with Washington, and the Administration argued...
...showed every sign of working. Majority Leader Jim Wright, a Democrat, expressed a widely held view that the arms-talk link "enhances the likelihood" that Congress will release funds for production of an additional 21 MX missiles, bringing the total to 42. One key backer was Democratic Congressman Les Aspin, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who told several colleagues that he planned to vote in favor of the MX, though he declined to make his position public. Democratic Congressman Norman Sisisky of Virginia, who moved from opposing the MX to an undecided position, admitted, "Geneva has changed...
...council nonetheless has to be taken seriously. It still includes such party powers as House Majority Leader Jim Wright, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin and Georgia Senator Sam Nunn, an influential voice on military policy. Even two blacks, House Budget Committee Chairman William Gray of Pennsylvania and Missouri Congressman Alan Wheat, have joined. Their presence indicates that discontent with what is often regarded as weak and divided leadership by the National Committee has spread far beyond the ranks of Sunbelt whites...
...real." A freeze on military spending might not even be technically possible: there is some reason to think that contracts already signed by the Pentagon, under authority granted by Congress in past years, will keep military expenditures rising almost regardless of what the legislature may do now. Les Aspin of Wisconsin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee in the Democrat-controlled House, talks of holding military-spending increases to 3% over the rate of inflation, about half of what Weinberger proposes. One reason: a 3% "real" increase in defense budgets is what the U.S. is urging on its NATO allies...
...missile, which will be put to authorization and appropriation votes in both houses some time in March, is definitely in danger. Aspin, a supporter of the MX last year, has hinted that he will switch his vote. Goldwater has already stated that the controversial missile, which would cost $20 billion to $30 billion, is dead. The bill for Star Wars, now in the earliest stages of research, will not come due for many years, but some Congressmen are threatening to strangle this Reagan-policy brainchild in the crib...