Russ Feingold: “Let us be clear what we are attempting. We are in a period here where everyone in the country knows we are trying to…”

“Let us be clear what we are attempting. We are in a period here where everyone in the country knows we are trying to find places where we can reduce spending. There are a number of areas that receive very strict scrutiny. There is a sense--it is not held by just one party--that perhaps sometimes the defense spending does not get the same scrutiny that other areas do. Sometimes it leads to defense bashing which may not be justified. It is even possible, if people get an attitude that the Defense Department expenditures are not scrutinized, that there may develop an attitude in this country that would actually threaten national security, that it may become difficult for those advocating defense expenditures to be believed, and that there are those who do not take a warning signal seriously. All that we are suggesting here in this amendment is that a very recent report, yesterday, from the General Accounting Office says--not that this is a bad aircraft, I say to the Senator from Missouri, not that it does not provide perhaps some additional benefits; it may be and probably would turn out that in some areas this is a more capable airplane--but the question is, is the marginal benefit of those improvements sufficient to justify a $17 billion difference in cost, vis-a-vis the C/D planes? That is the issue. We are not stopping the plane here.”