Meet The Congressmen Who Favor A Broken Plane Over Saving The Economy

As mandatory budget cuts loom, a group of Congressional Republicans has cheered the coming reductions in federal spending — so long as federal funding is maintained for a plane that is years behind schedule and doesn’t fly, that is.

The Department of Defense announced on Friday afternoon that it has grounded the entire fleet of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in light of an issue with its engine. Grounding the fleet, in all three of its variations, is just the latest in a slew of setbacks to the troubled acquisition program. Produced by Lockheed Martin to the tune of $100 million per plane, the total cost of the project so far has climbed over $400 billion, making it the most expensive weapons system in U.S. history. By contrast, the Manhattan Project — which created the nuclear weapon from scratch — cost about $55 billion in today’s dollars.

The F-35 project as a whole is currently at least six years behind schedule, slated for delivery in 2015 at the earliest. Beginning on March 1, the Defense Department budget is poised to fall under the effect of mandatory budget cuts known as sequestration, cutting $1 trillion from the budget in military and domestic spending over the next ten years.

Enter the Joint Strike Fighter Caucus.

Formed in 2011, as talks to avoid sequestration were first ongoing, 49 members of the House of Representatives — hailing from both parties — signed on to protect the F-35. Several of the Republican members of the JSF Caucus, however, are among the most ardent supporters of slashing federal funding currently in Congress. Among their ranks are Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA), Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), each of whom have called for deep reductions to programs that actually work.

Broun, in a 2012 interview with Politico, estimated that he had proposed $4 billion in cuts in the House Science, Technology, and Commerce committee alone. Franks has made clear that he believes the only way to shrink the government “is to choke the monster.” Poe has compared Congress to “addicts” when it comes to spending, proposing a 12 step program to break the habit as he argued against the fiscal cliff deal.

While several Republicans have favored raising revenues to help offset sequestration, none of the Republicans listed above have joined in. Instead, the Representatives listed above all voted “aye” on a bill to replace the defense cuts in sequestration entirely with cuts on the domestic side. Cuts to defense can be made certainly made to military spending — if done smartly — making voting to protect a plane that doesn’t work in opposition to providing health care to millions of Americans near unconscionable.

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GOP Congressmen Suggest Republican Senators Who Voted For ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Compromise Were Drunk

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), who is joining a growing number of Republicans trying to add more spending cuts to the last-minute fiscal cliff deal and send it back to the Senate, joked that Senators may have been drunk when they passed the measure in the early hours of Jan 1.

Responding to a question on CNN’s The Situation Room about why fiscal hawks like Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) supported the measure in the Senate, Issa implied that the 89 senators voted for the compromise because of the late night partying in celebration of the New Year. Pressed by host Wolf Blitzer for clarification, Issa said that he was just “having a little fun” with his answer:

BLITZER: All of those 89, including all of those conservative Republicans, including Pat Toomey and others, they were wrong?

ISSA: You know, Wolf, frankly I can’t account for what happens after midnight and all of that partying and revelry and drinking that goes on on New Years Eve at 2:00 in the morning. What I can tell you is they did half of a bill. The half of the bill certainly is going to be popular in the way of holding down taxes but the other half is there’s no spending reductions…. In other words, $4 trillion will be added to the debt over ten years with this tax cut unless we do some spending cuts to help offset it. Right now the president is still in a spending mood. We need to get him in a savings mood.

BLITZER: I just want to clarify one point, you said it was after the new year’s and they were partying. Are you suggesting that Mitch McConnell and your fellow Republicans in the Senate they were a little bit drunk when they voted on this last night?

ISSA: Of course not. I was having a little fun with you, Wolf. The fact is, it was after midnight. It was a piece of legislation intended to be passable, not necessarily to be right.

Watch it:

Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH) made a similar comment to reporters, saying, “Our sense…was that a number of the [Senate] Republicans who voted for it must have been drunk.”

Following a Tuesday afternoon GOP conference meeting, House Republicans, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), are publicly opposing the Senate-passed measure. Members are reportedly working on adding an amendment that would reduce spending. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has vowed to block any further changes to the bill, leaving Boehner with the options of: 1) putting the Senate-passed bill to a House vote (and see it pass with Democratic votes and overwhelming Republican opposition) or 2) adding spending cuts that “they know Democrats can’t live with,” passing the revised bill through the House with little if any Democratic support, and see it go nowhere the Senate — sending the nation over the cliff.

The House will vote on the Senate bill as written, without a spending amendment, at around 9:30 PM. The measure is expected to pass, at which point it will go to President Obama for his signature.

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