David Obey: “the Air Force wants to buy C-130-J transport aircraft but they only wanted to buy one of them. The Air Force, instead…”

“the Air Force wants to buy C-130-J transport aircraft but they only wanted to buy one of them. The Air Force, instead, is getting six more planes than they expected. I do not really know whether they need those additional planes or not, that is up to somebody who knows a whole lot more about the military requirements of the Air Force on this point than I do. But the problem is that they do not need these planes for more than a decade, and the real kicker is that the Air Force documents, which were obtained by the General Accounting Office, indicated that the Air Force and Lockheed have agreed that the price will drop in fiscal 1998 by $8.4 million a plane or $50 million total for the six aircraft. In other words, all we have to do to save the $50 million is to wait 1 year. Now, it seems to me under those circumstances that the decision to buy in bulk before the discount defies common sense, but that is exactly what we are going to do. The issue here is very simple. There will be a lot of people who will want to buy these planes. I am not getting into that argument. All I am saying is if the Air Force needs the planes they can get them next year at a discount. But by buying them this year it will cost us $50 million more.”