Stimulating the nuclear weapons complex?

"At a time when President Obama has committed himself to seeking a world without nuclear weapons -- backed up with specific pledges to seek a global test ban and a prohibition on the production of bomb-making materials -- Congress should not be throwing money at the nuclear weapons complex," writes Ploughshares Fund grantee William Hartung of the New America Foundation, responding to news of $7.8 billion budgeted for the agency responsible for researching, developing and maintaining nuclear weapons. "The funding is set aside for a variety of purposes, from construction of facilities to clean-up of weapons sites to 'laboratory infrastructure, to 'advanced computing development.' Whatever the appropriations committee chooses to call it, it represents a bailout for an agency that should be reduced in size, not increased."