House Decides Not To Fight Over Extra Jets

08.11.09 | FL News Team

A plan by House leaders to spend 550-million dollars on new jets has been reversed. Facing opposition in the Senate, the Pentagon and even other lawmakers in the House, Representative John Murtha has announced "they will be eliminated from the bill." Murtha is the chairman of the House panel that had doubled the original White House request for four new aircraft to replace some older planes. A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California says the speaker supports Murtha's decision to retreat from the larger order.

 

The Gulfstream 5 and Boeing 737 jets are maintained by the Air Force and used occasionally by members of Congress for world travels. Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri was quoted during the weekend as saying "it is evidence that some of the cynicism about Washington is well placed." A Republican, South Dakota Senator John Thune, called funding for the new aircraft "a classic example of Congress being out of touch with the realities of deficit spending."