John W. Olver: “I rise in favor of the Dellums-Kasich-Foley amendment. Mr. Chairman, restarting the B-2 bomber production line cannot be…”

“I rise in favor of the Dellums-Kasich-Foley amendment. Mr. Chairman, restarting the B-2 bomber production line cannot be justified on any known grounds. The Joint Chiefs of Staff have testified that more B-2's are unnecessary. Just last week, Defense Secretary William Cohen told us he opposes this astronomically expensive project. Further, the price tag for the B-2's in this bill is misleading. The $331 million is just a small downpayment for nine additional bombers. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the cost of this project will explode to $27 billion in inflation adjusted dollars over 20 years--for each of those nine bombers, $1.5 billion for procurement and $1.5 billion for maintenance. For each additional B-2, we could fund prenatal care for 1½ million women or immunizations for nearly 10 million babies, or Head Start for 330,000 students or health care for ½ million children or summer jobs for more than a million teenagers. If we cannot afford to give the proposed child tax credit to millions of poor working families who need help buying food, housing, and medical care, then how can we afford to waste $27 billion on B-2 bombers. I urge my colleagues to save our limited resources for something of value--something we need.”