Missile Defense: Billpayer?

Once the wave of stimulus spending to jumpstart the economy has ended, the administration will need to start finding programs across the board that they can cut or reduce to save money in an effort to reduce the massive budget deficit.  The DoD baseline budget will probably be lower and Gates is already emphasizing that some major acquisition programs will have to suffer.  Missile defense is usually mentioned near the top of this list of programs that could be scaled back.  On the political side, GSN reported yesterday that House Armed Services Committee Chair Ellen Tauscher echoed Obama's statements on missile defense by saying, "I fully agree with President [Barack] Obama's position that we should only deploy missile defenses that have been sufficiently tested and proven to work."  From a more technical standpoint, Bloomberg reported that Pentagon weapons tester Charles McQueary said he does not have "high confidence" that our missile defense system could adequately defend against a North Korean missile.  His annual report can be found here.  While there still remains skepticism about the ability of a North Korean missile to successfully reach Alaska or the West Coat of the United States, it seems that Congress and the President will focus much more on Theater Missile Defense given Tauchsher's assessment that they "meet the President's criteria" as opposed to difficult systems that are supposed to defend against long-range missile threats.