On the recordMay 27, 2010
I agree with Mr. Coffman, who cochairs, along with me, the Balanced Budget Caucus. I agree with him on both counts: one, that I have got a good amendment here, and that we ought not to pass the Murphy amendment. I think everybody understood the course that we were headed on with regard to Don't Ask, Don't Tell was for the military to do a study of the issue, give the study to us, we look at the study and then make a decision. We don't have the results of the military's analysis. What we do have is pretty well expressed concerns by the service Chiefs of each one of our branches that we ought not to move forward, that we are getting the cart before the horse here on this issue. It seems to me we have been committed for some time to a course where we are going to look at the information and then make the decision. This reverses that course. I think it's a mistake. As long as we are talking about different issues here, I would like to talk about the F-35 alternate engine as well. We cochair, Mr. Coffman, the Balanced Budget Caucus. We are both very concerned about unnecessary expenditures. I talked to a retired commodore recently. He was an F-16 pilot. They had a squadron where pretty routinely only four to six of their jets would operate, and it was engine problems. At the time they were having those problems, it was sole sourced. When competition was injected, the effect of competition was that all of a sudden the engines that we were getting improved in quality dramatically.
