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Rep. Murphy Proposes Defense Cuts
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February 6, 2010
For Immediate Release
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Contact
Neil Samuels
Executive Director
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Defense cuts said to save billions
Patrick Murphy and Rob Andrews believe money can be diverted from bad programs to better ones. By Gary Weckselblatt
The Loran-C, a Defense Department radio navigation system made obsolete by Global Positioning Systems, will officially be terminated Monday - decades after federal agencies begged for its demise.
Congressman Patrick Murphy, D-8, called the Loran-C "duplicative and unnecessary" and figures its demise will save taxpayers nearly $200 million over the next five years.
Both Murphy and fellow House Armed Services Committee member New Jersey Rep. Rob Andrews, D-1, touted other defense cuts Friday they said would save $10 billion.
The pair said they helped cut programs such as the Multiple Kill Vehicle, the Transformational Satellite, the F-22 Raptor, the Air Force Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR-X) Helicopter, and the Kinetic Energy Interceptor. They argued the moves would enhance the national security of the United States.
Murphy said they make "good fiscal sense for taxpayers and good strategic sense for our war fighters. Every dollar wasted on an unnecessary program is one less dollar to be spent on the resources our troops need to keep us safe."
The F-22, Murphy said, has not flown a single mission over Iraq or Afghanistan. It cost $3.5 billion a year and has required more than 30 hours of maintenance for every hour in the skies, pushing its hourly cost of flying to more than $44,000.
The termination of the Multiple Kill Vehicle will save more than $4 billion from 2010 through 2015. Secretary of defense Robert Gates said the program has had "significant technical challenges."
The Department of Defense anticipates savings of about $1.5 to $2.5 billion though 2015 as a result of procuring more Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellites in the place of the Transformational Satellite.
The CSAR-X has experienced problems with contracting and high costs, and there is not a clear need for an aircraft solely devoted to one purpose when multi-purpose aircraft are available, Murphy said. Further, this program has experienced contracting problems that have led to delays and higher costs.
President Barack Obama's budget requests submitted Feb. 1 include a $549 billion base allocation; $159 billion overseas contingency operations request to fund operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the $33 billion fiscal 2010 supplemental request that covers costs of implementing the new Afghanistan strategy.
A recent congressional report found that 96 major weapons systems are now running almost $300 billion over original cost estimates and are on average 22 months behind schedule.
"If we had not squandered that $300 billion," Andrews said, "we would have had enough to pay the salaries of the troops, the health benefits of the troops and their families, for more than two years."
In March, Andrews was appointed to chair a seven-member panel to address the ongoing challenge of defense acquisition reform. The group, which consists of members of the House Armed Services Committee, is evaluating the Department of Defense's procurement policies to look for financial waste and ways to change the procurement system.
He said Murphy has been the only House member to "take the initiative" and sit in on meetings even though he's not an official member of the panel.
"We should clone this guy," Andrews said of the 8th
District Representative, a former Army captain in Iraq. "He has walked the walk. He understands this is not a theoretical discussion."
A combination of the work being done by the defense acquisition panel and a new law passed unanimously to grant the Pentagon power to rein in wasteful defense could give the defense secretary the power of a consumer.
"If someone's working on your house and you don't like the work they're doing, you don't pay them," Andrews said. Gates "didn't have that power before the law was passed.
"This is the tip of the iceberg. Now he'll have the power to turn off the money spigot, the waste spigot."
Gary Weckselblatt can be reached at 215-345-3169 or gweckselblatt@phillyburbs.com
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February 06, 2010
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