(Washington, D.C.) – The nation’s premier taxpayer watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today congratulated the 233 House members who took a first bold step forward and voted to eliminate any further funding for an alternate engine for the Air Force’s Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).  The final vote on the bi-partisan amendment to the Continuing Resolution (CR) offered by Reps. U.S. Reps. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) and John Larson (D-Conn.) was 233 to 198.   

“By any measure, today’s House vote to finally zero out funding for this wasteful engine signals a new direction for this Congress, and hopefully for the fiscal wellbeing of the country,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.  “Over the last few years, even in the face of coherent opposition to this funding by two presidents, two secretaries of defense and a plurality of the Pentagon’s brass, even after the adoption of a two-year moratorium on earmarking, facing an almost $1.5 trillion deficit in 2011 and a staggering $14 trillion national debt, there were some in Congress who were under tremendous pressure to keep the gravy train going.  They were stopped today by a phalanx of committed reformers who are determined to restore some sanity to this budget.  There are colossal budget battles ahead and the new fiscal conservatives will need to be prepared to take many more votes like the one they took today,” concluded Schatz. 

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.