Brian Jones: “I continue to be amazed and disappointed that the Republican Party wants to keep putting money in a black hole. The…”

“I continue to be amazed and disappointed that the Republican Party wants to keep putting money in a black hole. The black hole is known as Afghanistan. The story broke yesterday that the Pentagon spent $43 million on a single natural gas station in Afghanistan when it should have cost no more than $300,000. The Pentagon spent over $30 million in overhead costs to build this one gas station, and the gas station was set up to service a kind of car that a huge majority of Afghans cannot afford. The Pentagon also will not answer any questions about this ridiculous waste of money. The $43 million gas station is one of the hundreds of examples of the waste of the taxpayers' money in Afghanistan. John Sopko has repeatedly written about the waste in Afghanistan. I don't know why Congress has continued to fund the waste and fraud in Afghanistan. Instead, last week, Congress passed a budget deal that increased defense spending over the next 2 years by over $80 billion a year. I did not vote for this bill. We already have a national debt of over $18 trillion, and I cannot, in good conscience, vote to add $1.5 trillion to the debt. The budget deal also puts $59 million into the Overseas Contingency Operation fund, which is a slush fund for spending money in unauthorized wars in the Middle East. I am for rebuilding our military, but I am not in favor of the waste in Afghanistan. Mr. Speaker, enough is enough.…”