Republicans oppose new START treaty

[Jeffersons Ghost]

START Stalled: GOP Delaying Vote On Arms Treaty
by David Welna

It's been almost a year since the end of a nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russia — the two countries with 90 percent of the world's nuclear arsenal — that was known as the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START.

In April, President Obama signed an updated arms-control treaty with Russia called New START. He told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last weekend that he believed the Senate would ratify that treaty before it adjourns this year...

To assuage Republican concerns about funds to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal, the White House added another $4 billion this week to the $80 billion it had already budgeted for the next decade.

http://www.npr.org/2010/11/17/131393364/key-republicans-oppose-new-start-treaty

Spending ANYTHING to "modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal" is utterly absurd. We're already budgeted for $159 billion to support overseas contingency operations. Aren't we spending enough on defense already? This isn't the big, bad USSR. This is struggling Russia we're talking about.