The Pentagon's Wasteful Spending

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I rise to highlight the Pentagon's $125 billion of wasteful spending exposed this week by The Washington Post.

Just this week, Congress allocated hundreds of billions of dollars to fund a military that is larger than the next seven countries' militaries combined while we are providing a comparatively small sum of money to increase medical research, to educate our youth, and to support our first responders. To then discover that the Pentagon has identified $125 billion in waste underscores our Nation's misguided priorities.

If just 10 percent of that waste were redirected to the National Institutes of Health, cures could be found and lives could be saved. In this year's defense authorization, $1.5 billion is spent to upgrade an aircraft carrier that the U.S. Navy recommended to retire. Until we press the Pentagon to undergo a rigorous audit, I cannot and will not support their bloated budget request.

I share President Eisenhower's concerns when he said:

We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military- industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

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