Jerry Nadler: “I rise to oppose this restrictive rule. The bill authorizes $3.7 billion more on procurement alone than the…”

“I rise to oppose this restrictive rule. The bill authorizes $3.7 billion more on procurement alone than the administration requests. We should not spend billions of dollars that the American people do not have to buy weapons we do not have to fight enemies that do not exist. Mr. Speaker, I offered an amendment that would have reduced the spending for the F-22 fighter plane to the level approved by the Senate Committee on Armed Services. We should not be funding the development of three competing fighter planes for the same mission, but the rule does not permit my amendment even to be discussed on the floor of the House. Is it perhaps because the contractor, the prime contractor is based in Marietta, GA? It is a disservice to the American people that this amendment and scores of others that would have allowed for the discussion of the size and scope of this budget, were barred from the floor of the House. If we had a proper rule, we could discuss cost overruns, its program delays, its fuel leaks, its prototypes that crash and burn, brought to you by the hard-earned dollars of the American taxpayer, and we could vote on that funding. But the rule will not permit that. A rule that prevents such debate and prevents the House from voting on whether to waste billions of dollars on three separate duplicative programs should not be approved. I urge my colleagues to defeat it.”