David Obey: “I have in my hand, as Senator McCarthy from my home State used to say, a pork barrel catalog. What happened this year is…”

“I have in my hand, as Senator McCarthy from my home State used to say, a pork barrel catalog. What happened this year is that the authorizing committee asked the various services at the Pentagon to prepare a list of projects in the authorization bill, by Member of Congress, indicating what the economic impact would be for each of the items in the bill in each Member's congressional district. They were also asked to estimate how many jobs were created by the projects in each Member's congressional district. Again, there is nothing wrong with that. But what this amendment says is very simple, and I offer it with absolutely no expectation it will be adopted because I understand how much pressure there is on this bill. But nonetheless, the amendment says something very simple: It simply says if there is a project in this bill and if the military says it has no military value, that it has no documented military requirement under their formal mission needs statement process, and, second, if it is so extremely high in cost, as defined by this pork catalog put together by the national security authorizing committee, that the cost per job of that project would exceed $100,000, then we should not do it. That is all it says.”