Once again, House freshmen members are setting themselves apart showing they refuse to play politics as usual.

A redundant program that would have provided an "alternate" engine for the F-35 fighter was killed, largely because freshmen members of the tea party caucus went against the wishes of their speaker.

New York Times:

In a sign that some freshman Republicans are willing to cut military spending, the House voted 233-198 on Wednesday to cancel an alternate fighter jet engine that the Bush and Obama administrations had tried to kill for the last five years.

The vote was another instance in which some of the new legislators, including members of the Tea Party, broke ranks with the House speaker, John A. Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, where the engine provided more than 1,000 jobs.

Many of the 87 freshman Republicans in the House had initially been hesitant to trim military spending as part of their drive to reduce the budget deficit.

But after forcing Mr. Boehner and other Republican leaders to propose greater cuts in domestic programs, the freshmen agreed last week to include $16 billion in military cuts in this year's spending bill.

Wednesday's vote to cancel the alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter would cut an additional $450 million and save up to $3 billion over the next several years.

This was pure politics and nothing more. The engine would have given jobs to citizens in districts of powerful members but its military usefulness was questionable. 

Let's see these freshmen set their sights a little higher in slaughtering sacred cows.