[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16735]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               THE BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, we are in the process of wrapping up a 
budget agreement that is welcome since it protects against default on 
the national debt and prevents draconian cuts for disability payments 
and unfairness in Medicare premiums for our senior citizens; but it 
continues a downward spiral in government spending for essential items 
that would improve America's infrastructure, education, medical 
research, and much more. Yet, at the same time, we are continuing on 
autopilot with some of the largest expenditures for generations to 
come.
  We had an announcement yesterday that we will be replacing the next 
generation of stealth bombers for our nuclear triad--up to 100 of 
them--at an estimated cost of over $550 million each, and that is just 
the estimated shelf price, the opening bid, plus another $20 billion in 
development costs.
  Our history of developing weapons of this magnitude is that from the 
opening bid, the price is likely to spiral much higher in the future. 
The same contractor, Northrop Grumman, which won this bid, could only 
build 21 B-2s out of a planned 132 as the costs spiraled to over $1 
billion a plane.
  This comes at a time when we are committed to spending over $1 
trillion in the coming decades in upgrading our nuclear fleet. Think 
about it: 12 new ballistic missile submarines, up to 100 new long-
range, nuclear-capable bombers, 642 new land-based ballistic missiles, 
1,000 new nuclear-capable, long-range standoff cruise missiles.
  And why are we doing this in the first place?
  Think for a moment. These weapons that we have already are far in 
excess of anything America will ever need--a destructive capacity to 
obliterate any nation multiple times over--yet, we are moving ahead 
without ever discussing this spending here on the House floor as to 
whether or not it is what we need.
  Think about the security threats of today in terms of an inability to 
withstand the devastating impacts of climate change on our communities, 
the threats from ISIS, different challenges of encroachment from Russia 
and China--not nuclear attack, but moving ahead in building artificial 
islands, invading neighboring countries. These are threats now--the 
Taliban, international terrorism--and we are committed to spending vast 
sums on weapons that we are never likely to use and are useless against 
the real threats we face.
  We don't need 454 land-based nuclear missiles now. These end up 
threatening us. Look at the recently released information about the 
stand-down around Russian paranoia in 1983 regarding NATO exercises. We 
didn't realize how panicked they were or the steps that they took. That 
is the real threat from nuclear weapons, accident or miscalculation.
  Consider the opportunity costs of vast sums of money that we are 
tying up that could be used for other purposes, including strengthening 
our military for today's threats or helping our veterans or our 
communities on what is bearing down upon them or equipping our citizens 
to function in this century.
  We just had a fascinating lesson when the Export-Import Bank was 
freed from the iron grasp of the committee and was allowed to actually 
be debated on the floor of the House. It had been bottled up for years. 
It had never had that sort of attention. We had more time and energy 
spent on the Ex-Im Bank over the last 50 hours than, probably, the last 
50 years--certainly, in the last 50 months.
  What would happen if Congress actually addressed and debated the 
wisdom of our current nuclear policies and the vast sums of money that 
are being spent on autopilot that will be chewing a hole in the budget 
to the detriment of the Department of Defense and everything else?
  There is a lesson to be learned, and I hope someday Congress will 
learn it, because there is a path for a stronger, safer America, for 
more meaningful, targeted military spending, and for a balanced, 
thoughtful budget prioritization. If Congress does its job in the open, 
collectively, the decision becomes easier and the results become 
better.

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