Rep. Dale Strong, who co-chairs the House Golden Dome Caucus, urged Congress on Wednesday to pass a budget to fund President Donald Trump's proposed missile defense system, warning that relying on temporary measures could stall one of the costliest defense projects in U.S. history.
"We've got to get a budget," the Alabama Republican said during remarks at the Global Aerospace Summit, being held in Washington, D.C., this week, reports The Washington Examiner. "These continued resolutions don't work."
Strong spoke alongside Raytheon President Phil Jasper and Keith Webster, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Defense and Aerospace Council, during a panel at the conference.
He emphasized that consistent federal funding is critical to jump-start the so-called Golden Dome, the proposed multilayered system designed to defend against long-range missile threats.
Jasper said the defense industry cannot make the necessary investments without clear demand signals from the government.
"No company can do this single-handedly," he said, citing the system's scale and complexity. Webster agreed, adding, "A CR is not a wartime footing."
The nation's mounting debt also underscores the need for cost discipline, and lawmakers need to "be able to do more with less."
Trump has estimated the cost for the Golden Dome at $175 billion, including a $25 billion down payment, while a Congressional Budget Office analysis put the total cost of deploying and operating a constellation of space-based interceptors over 20 years between $161 billion and $831 billion.
Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, who now leads the Golden Dome program, compared its complexity to the Manhattan Project.
"The only time that I can think of in the history of the United States where we have gone after something this complex was the Manhattan Project," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this year.
Guetlein said the challenge lies not in the technology itself, but in coordinating across numerous government agencies and private contractors.
"It's complex because of the number of organizations and the number of agencies that need to be involved," he said.
However, Guetlein insisted that the project can be achieved, but acknowledged it will be a difficult process.
"It's not complex because the technology's going to be hard," Guetlein said. "It's complex because of the number of organizations and the number of agencies that need to be involved."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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