WASHINGTON -- The new budget-slashing bent by congressional Republicans is making for some strange bedfellows.
Take, for example, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Coweta County.
Wednesday, the four-term Republican, who usually is highly critical of President Barack Obama and Democrats, found himself siding with Obama and top administration officials -- and against House Speaker John Boehner and other top Republicans.
The issue: a $3 billion program to add a second engine to the Air Force's F-35 fighter jets being built by Lockheed Martin in Marietta and at other factories across the country.
Westmoreland has been a vocal opponent to a second engine on the plane, which he and others say is unnecessary and a huge waste of tax dollars.
Earlier this week, Westmoreland and three other House members -- two Democrats and one other Republican -- teamed up to sponsor legislation to nix $450 million in federal funding for the remainder of this year that would've gone to pay for interchangeable, backup engines for the Pratt & Whitney engines already included with the planes.
Proponents of a second F-35 engine include manufacturers General Electric and Rolls-Royce, and lawmakers whose states would benefit from a second-engine program, such as Boehner of Ohio. They say it would've made the jet better and that increased competition for the engine work would've eventually helped reduce the overall price tag of the jets. Currently, the planes are expected to cost about $92 million each, and the government wants to buy more than 2,400 of them.
Obama also has called a second F-35 engine unnecessary and a waste. So has Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was on Capitol Hill on Wednesday railing against attempts to fund the extra engine program.
In the end, a sharply divided House voted 233-198 Wednesday against funding for a second engine for the jet, supporting Westmoreland and the Obama administration.
"It’s about time Washington finally woke up and realized one true fact: We are broke," Westmoreland said in a statement after the vote.
"While having a backup engine source for the F-35 might be a nice luxury, it’s one we simply cannot afford," he said.
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