Jeff Flake: “This is a good bill. We need to give NASA the flexibility they need to hire good people and retain them. I am simply…”

“This is a good bill. We need to give NASA the flexibility they need to hire good people and retain them. I am simply saying in this era of big deficits and the spending problem that we have in Congress, we ought to ensure that any new authorization is met with some spending restraint on the other side and we pay for the money we are spending here. The Flake amendment would require NASA to submit to Congress a plan to offset new spending authorized under this legislation with budget reductions elsewhere in the NASA budget. The Flake amendment gives NASA the flexibility to choose which budget request to target for reduction. We are not telling them how to do it; we are simply saying please match this funding with similar reductions. Adoption of the Flake amendment gives Congress the opportunity to ensure that new spending authorization for must-have workplace flexibility is met with spending restraints. The CBO estimates that S. 610 will cost $80 million over the 2004- 2008 period.”