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Republican says Dem needs to set the record straight on nukes
A House Republican subcommittee chairman on Wednesday accused a Democratic colleague of distorting the amount Washington pays annually for its nuclear weapons arsenal.
At issue is whether the U.S. spends as much as $50 billion a year on its fleet of nuclear weapons, a figure floated to the now-defunct supercommittee by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) in a call for deep nuclear cuts.
Proposals for nuclear weapons reductions have been a big part of just about every list of arms cuts floated in recent months by left-leaning lawmakers and think tanks. Republican lawmakers vigorously opposes any reductions to America’s arsenal beyond those included in the most recent nuclear weapons treaty with Russia.
In a Wednesday letter to Markey obtained by The Hill, House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee Chairman Michael Turner (R-Ohio) takes umbrage with the $50 billion figure.
Turner says Markey’s cost figures were taken from the Ploughshares Fund, a proponent of nuclear arms cuts. The group came up with a total cost of $700 billion over 10 years.
“I respectfully request that you publicly repudiate and correct the inaccurate and misleading information contained in your October 1 letter [to the supercommittee],” Turner wrote.
"Rep. Turner’s accounting of the nuclear weapons program makes Enron look like mathematicians," Markey said in a statement made available to The Hill late Wednesday. "His calculations exclude hundreds of billions in spending over the next decade on missile defense, nuclear threat reduction and environmental remediation from previous nuclear weapons production, all of are which are massive costs associated with the nuclear weapons program.
"This patently-false undercount that neglects past spending information does nothing to help tackle the kind of cuts needed to reduce our deficit," the Massachusetts Democrat said.
Turner trotted out the Obama administration’s nuclear arms budget figures, which show Washington spends $21.4 billion annually on its nukes, which translates into $214 billion over a decade.
The House Republican subcommittee chairman also notes when asked during a Nov. 2 congressional hearing about the $700 billion figure, James Miller, a senior Pentagon official, said it was arrived upon using “curious arithmetic” and some “double counting.”
The American Security Project, a non-partisan think tank, produced a television ad that aired in Washington and other areas during the Nov. 22 GOP presidential debate arguing for nuclear-arms cuts also used the $700 billion figure.
“The Cold War is over. Yet some in Congress want to spend over $700 billion on old, outdated nuclear programs, forcing the Pentagon to go without modern defense programs our troops need to face 21st century threats,” an announcer says during the ad. “Tell Congress it’s time we ended these pork-barrel nuclear programs. Our troops need help fighting terrorists, not Soviets.”
Dozens of lawmakers also received copies of Turner's letter.
—This article has been corrected.
This article was updated at 9:30 p.m.
