{"id":2418,"date":"2010-08-01T02:17:32","date_gmt":"2010-08-01T09:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=2418"},"modified":"2010-08-02T09:43:21","modified_gmt":"2010-08-02T16:43:21","slug":"pense-another-republican-budget-hypocrite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/08\/01\/pense-another-republican-budget-hypocrite\/","title":{"rendered":"Pence: Another Republican Budget Hypocrite"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the areas in which Secretary Gates has done a credible job, despite his initial appointment by the Bush Regime, had been identifying and calling for the end of weapons systems not suitable for the unconventional warfare we are most likely to face.\u00a0 One such is the F-35 spare engine.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\"1F-35\"<\/a> Recognizing the need to cut spending in light of record budget deficits, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced major cuts to a number of big-ticket weapons programs last year that the Pentagon concluded it no longer needed. Gates \u2014 who was first appointed by President Bush \u2014 is so serious about the need to eliminate these programs that he has called on President Obama to veto any defense spending<\/a> bill that contains funding for further development of these wasteful, unnecessary systems. Chief among the cuts is an extra engine for the F-35 fighter jet, of which Gates has said, \u201cEvery dollar additional to the budget that we have to put into the F-35 is a dollar taken from something else that the troops may need<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

One would think that self-styled budget hawks like Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) would herald Gates\u2019 proposed cuts. He has said \u201cif we are going to put our fiscal house in order, everything has to be on the table. We have to be willing to look at domestic spending, we have to be able to look at entitlements, and we have to look at defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in an interview with Bloomberg\u2019s Al Hunt yesterday, Pence defended spending<\/a> hundreds of millions more on an extra engine, despite having said moments earlier that one of his top priorities is \u201cto get federal spending under control.\u201d Pence attempts to make a national security argument for the engine, before quickly revealing his true motives:<\/p>\n

HUNT: Everybody seems to be for \u2014 most people say they\u2019re for fiscal discipline, but it gets hard when it\u2019s in your district. Let me give you one example for you. You went to the House floor to defend money for a second engine for the Joint Strike Fighter \u2026 [which would have] a factory in your district. The Pentagon says it doesn\u2019t want it. The other day a Tea Party group \u2014 this is a Tea Party group \u2014 said of this project, it\u2019s an example of \u201copportunistic parasite feeding on the expansion of government.\u201d<\/span> Tough stuff.<\/p>\n

PENCE: Well, sure. And everyone\u2019s entitled to their own opinion, but \u2014 and not entitled to their own facts. The reality is, and the Heritage Foundation produced a very important study on this, is that it is believed that when you were talking about a military defense contract that will span decades of time, it is in the interest of taxpayers in the long run to have more than one source, more than one manufacturer of that engine.<\/span><\/p>\n

The fact that one of those two engines in part is manufactured in Indiana, we certainly welcome. We\u2019re proud of those jobs. But at the end of the day, I really do believe that it was in the interest of our national defense.<\/p>\n

Watch it:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

In contradicting<\/a> the Pentagon by claiming that the extra engine is \u201cin the interest of our national defense,\u201d Pence seems to be claiming that he \u2014 a former talk radio host \u2014 knows more about national security than the military. Rolls Royce, the company that would produce the extra engine, employes 4,000 people in Pence\u2019s district and has spent millions lobbying for the engine\u2026 [emphasis original<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Think Progress<\/a>><\/p>\n

One could hardly accuse Gates of being a dove, so if he says he doesn\u2019t need it, we shouldn\u2019t build it.\u00a0 Pense is protecting jobs in his in district and one of his major donors at everyone else\u2019s expense. Those $hundreds of millions need to be spent on something America needs.\u00a0 Conservatives may argue that we need those jobs.\u00a0 First we can use the money to create jobs.\u00a0 I would have no objection to spending it on defense jobs providing what out troops actually need.\u00a0 Moreover, why should Pense get the jobs?\u00a0 If we\u2019re going to target jobs to specific districts, itself a questionable idea, we should at least target them to locales where the Rep and Senators support job creation, not to locales where they oppose job creation for everyone else.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the areas in which Secretary Gates has done a credible job, despite his initial appointment by the Bush Regime, had been identifying and calling for the end of weapons systems not suitable for the unconventional warfare we are most likely to face.\u00a0 One such is the F-35 spare engine. Recognizing the need to […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}