It’s all too rare for us to pass out gold stars for Congressional reticence around budget time. So, we’re happy to report that fiscal and strategic sanity triumphed in the House this week with the defeat of attempts to restore funding to long-troubled missile defense programs.

Missile defense boosters in the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) racked up amendments at Tuesday’s markup of the defense authorization bill in protest of Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ cuts to the FY 2010 budget request. The first amendment out of the gate, introduced by Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH), would have added another 14 interceptors to the 30 currently stationed in California and Alaska to shoot down long-range missiles fired by rogue states. Gates cut this program—known as Ground-based Midcourse Defense—by 30 percent in favor of programs that target missiles in their boost phase, which commanders believe pose a greater threat to our troops abroad.

Other amendments would have devoted $500 million to establishing interceptor sites in Poland and radars in Czech Republic, a $4.5 billion project that neither country has signed off on; roll back the Pentagon’s termination of the Airborne Laser (ABL) and Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI), two programs that Gates has called “fatally flawed;” and reestablish the entire $1.2 billion worth of programs eliminated from the budget request.

Congressional supporters cited a number of less-than-compelling arguments, from the “moral” imperative to the effectiveness against a reactionary North Korea. This despite defense officials’ assertion that the country is years from having truly threatening capabilities. But  Rep. Trent Franks'  (R-AZ) assertion that  missile defense is “a great deal for our money” seemed the most disingenuous:  the $130 billion spent on missile defense to date with little consensus on its effectiveness  suggests otherwise.

There is another, more likely  motivation for Congressional enthusiasm: Rep. Rob Bishop’s (R-UT) KEI amendment might have had something to do with the hundreds of Utah jobs associated with the system , and Boeing’s Airborne Laser brings millions of dollars to the Arizona district of Franks , who sponsored the related amendment.

Even true believers’ argument that the cuts weaken our national defense are pretty thin. The fact is Gates hardly gutted missile defense: If anything, his cuts targeted only the most rotten of the low-hanging fruit. HASC Strategic Forces Subcommittee Chairwoman Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) called KEI “the definition of a sinkhole if ever there was one,” adding that the Airborne Laser—so weak it would have to hover above a target to take it out—is a shabby eight years behind schedule and $4 billion over budget. Meanwhile, Turner would have paid for his proposals by cutting funding for nonproliferation, which addresses the “threat we’re dealing with here and now,” as Rep. John Spratt (D-SC) reminded the committee.

While HASC members debated, their Senate counterparts heard Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman James E. Cartwright make the same points. Budget shifts are “driven by programs we thought … should not go into production, like the ABL, and programs like the Kinetic Energy Interceptor which was a troubled program from the start,” he said. Cartwright also pointed out that the boost-phase programs receiving more money in the Gates budget, such as the Aegis and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), have both the best chance of success and value for the taxpayer.

Though HASC made some bad choices elsewhere in the bill—such as adding $369 billion for 12 more F-22 Raptors—its members should be commended for being able to separate the wheat from the chaff in the missile defense budget. We hope the Senate Armed Services Committee will follow their lead when it takes on the bill next week and keep the low-hanging fruit forbidden.