Not all political news is bad: This one is quite hopeful
And the GOP contributed to the success of an important step to start realigning our country’s priorities. Report in the NY Times by Christopher Drew:
In a sign that some freshman Republicans were willing to cut military spending, the House voted 233-198 on Wednesday to cancel an alternate fighter jet engine that the Bush and Obama administrations had tried to kill for the last five years.
The vote marked another instance in which some of the new legislators, including members of the Tea Party, broke ranks with the House speaker, John A. Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, where the engine provided more than 1,000 jobs.
Many of the 87 freshman Republicans in the House had initially been hesitant to trim military spending as part of their drive to reduce the budget deficit.
But after forcing Mr. Boehner and other Republican leaders to propose greater cuts in domestic programs, the freshman agreed last week to include $16 billion in military cuts in this year’s spending bill.
Wednesday’s vote to cancel the alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter would cut an additional $450 million and save up to $3 billion over the next several years.
The vote was a victory for President Obama and the defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, who had called the engine wasteful at a time when the Pentagon budget was flattening out. Yet it also could signal trouble for Mr. Gates, who has complained that the Pentagon could face a short-term crisis if the Republicans go ahead with the $16 billion in additional military cuts this year.
In voting to cancel the engine, some of the Republican freshman formed an unusual alliance with liberal Democrats, who have opposed many of the Republican proposals for cuts in domestic programs.
The Joint Strike Fighter is the military’s most . . .
Continue reading. It does show that the most serious problems in Washington are not so much in the Executive Branch as in the Legislative. I suppose I had given up all hope of Congress doing its job, voting for the public weal rather than for private profit.
UPDATE: Emphasis added to story to help in comprehension.
I think, should you be interested in actual facts, that you’ll find the Dems were generally opposed to the engine, but it was the GOP that insisted on it. If you read the story carefully, you’ll learn that. For example, the opening makes it clear that it was the new Tea Party candidates that revolted against the GOP leadership to vote against continuing the (expensive, unneeded) engines.
I despair of our country’s future when so many (including you) cannot read a simple news story and understand the content.
But thanks for commenting. It shows how much work remains to be done, and how difficult it must be for many to understand what is going on when they cannot comprehend a simple news report.
LeisureGuy
16 February 2011 at 1:02 pm