David Obey: “I find this whole debate absolutely mind boggling. For the last month, the Congress has passed appropriation bill after…”

“I find this whole debate absolutely mind boggling. For the last month, the Congress has passed appropriation bill after appropriation bill and we have cut education, we have cut student loans, we have cut low-income heating assistance programs for poverty-ridden senior citizens, we have cut science budgets, we have cut virally everything you can think of on the domestic side of the ledger, and yet some of the same people who enthusiastically embraced those cuts are now saying, oh, but we have to have more spending on this turkey of a B-2 bomber. We are now being asked to spend money to buy more B-2's than the Pentagon itself is asking for, more than the President is asking for, and we are told that because some former Secretaries of Defense would like us to buy some of these toys, that we ought to do it. I would suggest the right people to ask are not former Secretaries of Defense but the former Directors of the Office of Management and Budget, because I will bet you, if you ask any of them, they will tell you that we simply cannot afford this plane, either militarily or fiscally.”