[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 4690-4691]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     HUGE COST OVERRUNS AT PENTAGON

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Madam Speaker, the front page of the Washington Post 
today carries a story about $295 billion in cost overruns at the 
Pentagon; $295 billion. That is a mind-boggling, almost 
incomprehensible figure to anyone who stops to think about it. The 
headline reads, ``GAO Blasts Weapons Budget.''
  Listen to this story. Government auditors issued a scathing review 
yesterday of dozens of the Pentagon's biggest weapons systems, saying 
ships, aircraft and satellites are billions of dollars over budget and 
years behind schedule. The story continues, ``The Government 
Accountability Office found that 95 major systems have exceeded their 
original budgets by a total of $295 billion, bringing their total cost 
to $1.6 trillion and are delivered almost 2 years late, on average.

                              {time}  1715

  Apparently, there are no fiscal conservatives at the Pentagon. 
Apparently they believe that the Congress will just keep giving them 
more money, no matter how wasteful or inefficient they become. Of 
course, almost all the defense contractors hire plenty of admirals and 
generals, so almost all of these contracts are sweetheart deals anyway.
  It is what the International Herald Tribune a few years ago called 
the ``revolving door'' at the Pentagon. $1.6 trillion in total costs, 
and $295 billion in cost overruns, and this was just on the major 
systems. No telling how much more was wasted on the smaller contracts.
  $295 billion would run the entire government of Tennessee, schools, 
health care, roads, prisons, parks, and on and on for the next 11 
years.
  Then, on top of all this waste, the request for the Iraq War for the 
coming fiscal year is $189 billion, or over $500 million a day. 
Apparently we are having so much success over there that we have to 
give them more money, more troops and more contractors than ever 
before.
  There is nothing fiscally conservative about the war in Iraq. 
Conservatives, above all, should realize that any gigantic government 
bureaucracy is always going to ask for more money and always find 
reasons to justify it.
  And Congress is afraid to cut the Defense Department for fear of 
being seen as unpatriotic. Yet, it is a very false and very blind 
patriotism that allows the Pentagon to continually waste mega billions 
and allows the Defense Department to spend like there is no tomorrow.
  In a few short years, we will not be able to pay all of our Social 
Security, Medicare, veterans' pensions, veterans' health care and many 
other things if we do not bring Federal spending under some type of 
control.
  In a newsletter I sent to my constituents in Tennessee a few weeks 
ago I wrote these words before I knew about these cost overruns I've 
spoken about today. ``Jonah Goldberg wrote in a recent issue of 
National Review that the `insight that involvement abroad fuels the 
expansion of the state was central to the formation of the modern 
conservative and libertarian movements.'
  ``In other words, perpetual war leads to bigger government and goes 
very much against traditional conservatism.
  ``Yet some conservatives have fallen into a trap of never questioning 
any military expenditure even though there is great waste and 
overspending in the military just as there is in any giant government 
bureaucracy.
  ``Our Constitution is a very conservative document, and our founding 
fathers felt very strongly that we should have civilian control of the 
military:
  ``Service in our military is very honorable and patriotic, but we 
need strong national defense, not international defense.
  ``We simply cannot afford to be the policeman of the world, and with 
the speed of communication and transportation today, we do not need our 
military in so many countries.
  ``Conservatives should support an efficient, fiscally conservative 
military, but it should not believe in turning the Department of 
Defense into the Department of Foreign Aid as it is in many ways 
today.''

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