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U.S. Response: Bush Signs Largest Defense Spending Boost Since Reagan U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday signed a $355.5 billion defense bill that authorizes $7.4 billion for ballistic missile defense (see GSN, Oct. 15). The increase — which also includes $72 billion for new weapons — is the largest in 20 years (Jennifer Loven, Associated Press/Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 24). Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and various Pentagon officials and lawmakers attended the signing. Bush singled out funding for the conversion of Trident ballistic missile submarines to carry conventional weapons as an important step in the transition to a more relevant military (see GSN, Oct. 2). He also used the signing to push for the stalled homeland security department; he told the group former President Harry Truman had organized U.S. defense agencies into one organization and equated the current impasse to that situation (see GSN, Oct. 4). “Today we are, once again, in a new era,” Bush said. “Yet our homeland security activities are spread among more than a hundred different government agencies. America needs a single department of government dedicated to protecting our people, and to protecting our homeland. We can’t wait any longer” (White House release, Oct. 24). In response to Bush’s statement, David Sirota, spokesman for House Appropriations Committee Democrats, said “the defense bill represents a bipartisan effort to prosecute the war on terror,” adding, “It’s only too bad the president has not displayed the same resolve in addressing the economy that he is running into the ground” (Loven, Associated Press/Philadelphia Inquirer).
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