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Senate Floor Battle over C-17
Senate Floor Battle over C-17:  Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on Tuesday introduced an amendment on the Senate floor during debate on the Senate’s version of the 2010 defense spending bill that would strip the $2.5 billion added to it by members of the Senate Appropriations Committee to buy 10 C-17s that the Obama Administration did not request and doesn’t want. "We neither need nor can afford," these C-17s, said McCain. CongressDaily reported Wednesday that his measure would redirect those funds to the military's operations and maintenance accounts to boost readiness. Countering McCain, appropriations committee chairman Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), who pushed for the add-on, argued that it would be unwise to shut down the C-17 production line prematurely before the Pentagon has made far-reaching decisions on its airlift fleet. As of late Wednesday, no floor vote had occurred. (See also Associated Press’ Sept. 30 report.)
10/1/2009
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Verbatim
Preemptive Action
"Since the [Defense] Department's acceptance of the independent estimates last fall, we've been, in just about every respect, acting as if the program were in a Nunn-McCurdy breach. ... We've been taking all of the mitigating and corrective action that we would take as if there were a Nunn-McCurdy breach."
—Air Force Secretary Michael Donley, discussing with reporters the restructure of the F-35 strike fighter program announced in February 2010 and the probability that the program will soon exceed Nunn-McCurdy cost-monitoring thresholds that would necessitate, per US law, a program review and corrective steps, Washington, D.C., March 2, 2010. |
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Verbatim
Message for Grandma
"She has working for her as a citizen in the United States an Air Force Reserve that has some very talented, capable, patriotic, and willing individuals doing the business to keep this nation free. Just like her generation—the 'Greatest Generation'—was, I am very proud of the folks that we have got. If not the second greatest, then they are an extension of the greatest generation and they are ready, willing, and able to do the things that she would want them to do to make sure we keep our freedoms."
—Lt. Gen. Charles Stenner, Air Force Reserve chief, responding to a reporter's question on what the reporter should tell his 85-year-old grandmother to convey to her the importance of Air Force Reservists to the nation's security, Orlando, Fla., Feb. 19, 2010.
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