Russ Feingold: “let me again remind the body that this does not require the termination of any one of the three jet fighters. It asks…”

“let me again remind the body that this does not require the termination of any one of the three jet fighters. It asks for a recommendation from the Department of Defense within 60 days as to which of the three should be terminated, if that became fiscally necessary. Second, it is simply not the view of everyone who knows a lot about this subject that this would jeopardize our national security or the defense capability of our Armed Forces. Take a look at the GAO reports, the CBO reports, the analysis of a number of military experts--that is just not the case. I hope the folks who have urged me to look at the hearing testimony which I and my staff have looked at with regard to the merits of these airplanes, would give the same kind of attention to the analysis, fiscal analysis and other analysis of others who we often rely on to give us advice about the effectiveness and cost efficiency of various programs, including the GAO and the CBO, as well as military experts. Look, I don't think anyone thinks these are not good planes. These are great planes that are being proposed. I went down and spent part of a morning seeing the wonderful E/F planes, but what we see here is a credit card mentality that somehow we can just have it all. There is no real plan here to make sure that we don't end up trying to have all of these things and, as a result, not end up being able to truly pay for the ones we most need.”