C. W. Bill Young: “I have not yet heard the other side, those in opposition, who are so strong in their opposition to this plane, what they…”

“I have not yet heard the other side, those in opposition, who are so strong in their opposition to this plane, what they figure we would use if we did not have this plane. I know there has been some talk of possibly another kind of bomber somewhere down the road, but there has been, what, $15 billion, $20 billion spent on R&D on this plane. I cannot see anyone here in this body that would begin to propose $15 billion to $20 billion R&D to build a new aircraft. This is the cheapest plane we could buy at this time. This is the only plane that has a production line, even though it is now being closed up, that does have a production line, one that the manpower is there, the technology is there; and we are in the process of taking this apart, wasting all of that money that was spent. I think that is something that really, it would be wonderful if we could look into the future and say no, we will never need another long-range bomber. We need to stand up and defend this plane to defend our service people.”