Bartering for New START Bad for National Security

Conn Carroll / November 15, 2010

While President Barack Obama was telling Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that New START would be one of his top priorities in the upcoming lame duck Congress his aides were busy spreading bags of money around Friday trying to buy votes. According to anonymous sources of The Washington Post, Obama administration official visited Capitol Hill offices, including Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) offering $4.1 billion in new funding for nuclear maintenance.

This is terrible public policy. If funds are needed for the most vital and sensitive military capability in the military’s arsenal they should be provided without conditions – period. Our nuclear arsenal either needs this money or it doesn’t. To bargain with the nation’s security is an antithesis of the appropriate behavior of a commander-in-chief. It would demonstrate the lack of the President’s real commitment to his responsibility as the steward of America’s nuclear arsenal. Conditioning funding for nuclear program on New START is playing politics with our national security. (more…)