Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Connecticut is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I rise in strong support of the amendment from the gentleman from Florida.

Cutting spending is not easy, but this one should be. I think the gentleman hit it right on the head. You are talking about the Department of Defense, the Secretary of Defense, the President, the generals who command the field all recommending against the development of a second engine. We should listen.

Now, we have heard a lot of discussion tonight, as we have when we've debated this issue in the past, about the dual issues of both quality and cost. But if this was really about the issues of both quality and cost, then we wouldn't just be talking about building a second engine. We would be talking about building a second plane; we would be talking about building a second aircraft carrier.

But as Representative Courtney so eloquently stated, the reason that we aren't talking about competitive bidding for a second plane, the reason why we aren't talking about two or three different aircraft carriers is that our generals, our military professionals have told us over and over again that it would be a tactical and operational nightmare to have a diversity of operational platforms with respect to these large operating systems.

This isn't about quality in the end, because the Army, the Navy, the Secretary of Defense tell us that it's not about quality.

If this was really about quality and cost, then we would have actual real competition. But we're not going to have real actual competition. What we know about these competitive bidding arrangements is that there is an explicit or implicit floor in the amount of business that you get. So whichever one of these engines is the inferior engine or the more costly engine is going to, on average, get about 40 percent of the business on an annual basis. That's not real competition.

If we want to talk about real competition, then there has to be real winners and losers here. That's not what is going on in the proposal before us. And if this was really about quality and cost, then we wouldn't have two other tactical aircraft programs that have a single engine and also have a near spotless record of performance and cost control.

We know how this works in other major aircraft acquisition programs. Single engines work. They have worked.

I think in the end, though, this is really just about who we listen to. I have great respect for the Members of this Congress who have served for years on the Armed Services Committee; but I think that when we get such unanimity of opinion, such uniformness of opinion from our military generals, from the Department of Defense, and the men and women who are going to be flying these planes, we should listen.

We should listen because it's the right thing to do for them, and we should listen because $3 billion isn't easy to cut out of the budget. But it's a lot easier when we have the people that are going to be handling the aircraft and the equipment telling us it's the right thing to do. I rise in support of the amendment.

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