Burlington City Hall Event
June 28, 2000
Remarks by David Casey
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INTRODUCTION
BY MURRAY BANKS:
David Casey worked in Washington, DC for the
Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign
and the US House of Representatives during the Reagan Years.
After moving
to Vermont he taught in the Burlington schools and has been working for
the State of Vermont for the past eight years.
David has a Masters degree in Government and has volunteered for a
number of US Senate races in Vermont over the years. David, who lives in downtown Burlington, stays active helping
out at the Flynn Theater and at the downtown YMCA.
David will speak on Rick’s positions with regard to revising our national budget priorities while strengthening our overall national security.
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David Casey |
REMARKS BY DAVID CASEY:
Good Afternoon,
I met Rick Hubbard a number of years ago when I heard that there was a group of people who went for regular morning snowshoe outings.
I called various people and places in Stowe to find out more about this group and was given Rick Hubbard's name. When I called him, he told me he was thrilled I called, he told me where and when the group met and he told me he would provide me with the snowshoes I did not have. I know now that the helpfulness, generosity, and sense of inclusiveness which he displayed in that initial telephone call from me, a complete stranger, is a hallmark of this man. This will serve him well as U.S. Senator from Vermont.
I am here today to publicly endorse Rick Hubbard for U.S. Senate from Vermont, and to make some comments on our current national priorities.
First of all, what are our national priorities? Not an easy question to answer.
One way of getting a rough approximation of what we deem as our national priorities is to look at how we spend our money.
We reflect our personal priorities by how we spend our money and on what we spend it on; nations reflect their priorities in the same way.
It is the typical guns versus butter tradeoff. Whether we are talking about the family budget or the federal budget, there are always trade-offs.
But looking at our federal discretionary budget, does it really make sense for us to spend more than 45 cents of every dollar on the military when that amounts to more than twice the defense spending of ALL of our potential adversaries combined? Of course, numbers don't take into account that we DO have allies.
Currently, Congress is deciding on whether to spend at this point $60 billion for an anti-ballistic missile program to defend ourselves against mainly North Korean nuclear missiles.
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Bear in mind the entire North Korean economy is just a fraction of this amount.
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Bear in mind the dynamic between the two Koreans is quickly changing as we see from recent events.
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Bear in mind that abrogating the 1972 ABM treaty will prove an enormously costly mistake in the court of world opinion.
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Bear in mind that $60 billion could provide nearly four Marshall Plan size development aid programs to attract North Korea on OUR side.
So why do we spend our dollars this way: That's another difficult question with many answers. One excuse Americans SHOULDN'T have to give is that some private interest personally benefits from this kind of poor public policy.
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Do private interests currently benefit from bad U.S. spending priorities? Yes, they do!
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Did General Eisenhower warn us against the dangers of private commercial interests compromising our real national priorities and national security? Yes, he did!
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Will campaign finance reform begin to address this problem? Yes, it will!
Rick's broad thinking on national security issues will promote real security and benefit all Americans. That's the major reason why I support Rick Hubbard for U.S. Senate in Vermont.
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