With a vote set for high noon on Tuesday, the political tide in the Senate has shifted to now favor the White House and Pentagon in their pivotal fight to strike new procurement funds for the F-22 fighter.
Just last week, conventional wisdom held that the $1.75 billion authorization would easily survive a challenge on the floor. But fearful of embarrassing President Barack Obama, Democrats appear to be moving back toward the White House, which has mounted its own late-breaking campaign to win the last votes.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is the public point man for the administration, making calls to senators and delivering a toughly worded speech last week in Chicago. But as the political stakes have become more evident, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has also begun working the phones, and Vice President Joe Biden last week even called his old friend, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), an ardent F-22 backer.
It’s a fight some Democrats would argue that Obama was foolish to make, raising the stakes unnecessarily with early veto threats. But the F-22 termination is Gates’s signature issue in changing the Pentagon budget.
Even the business advisory panel for the Pentagon called for the scrapping of this project.
they’ve been wanting to end this for a while.
god forbid we have some politicians that actually listen to the generals and the admirals in the military on what they need and what they can do for once. what a concept, letting competent people run the military? who’d have thunk that?
Too much down time and not enough air time with these birds besides the combat planes of the future need to leave the meat on the ground. It just gets in the way of doing the job.
I see another Jimmy Carter canceling the B1 bombers fiasco
you need to remember the sec of defense was put in place by the president and so guilt by association means that he hates the military also so having a liberal peacenic apologist tell you you don’t need the most advanced tactical fighter in the world means very little to any one who has any understanding of what we are facing in the coming century.
China making a move on Taiwan the 2nd coming Russia, in any fight air superiority is the single most important thing The f22 has proven
its self by shooting down 5 f15s in a dog fight ( which up until recently was the top fighter) but the apologist administration of Obama would have you believe if we just tell the world were a bunch of screw ups and we are sorry and want to be their friends all will be OK
you want the truth ask the commanding generals in sac if we need these planes they will give you a truthful answer
Good, some of the news outlets were making it sound like the Senate was going to force Obama to veto it.
187 is plenty, seeing as how they will almost certainly never be used as interceptors. Their role will similar to the old F-117, long range/first day of war stealth strikes. We only had 64 F-117s.
I’m surprised. Barry will need every weapon he can get his hands on to fend off the American Public when after the truth comes out.
I have a better idea:
Buy the damn things, but enforce the money to stay in USA, by buying parts and subparts and everything up to the raw materials with a trail of accountability. 4 bn each bird will move the economy big time.
Of course, if you build everything in china…
Obvious thing to kill and merely and example of lobbyist keeping it alive for obvious reasons.
If it’s killed, Republicans will politicize it as Obama not keeping America safe.
Same bullshit you expect from the wingnutts
Halt production
The FEDERAL RESERVE has enough weapon systems
Ouch! Double negative. Does that mean I can translate the subject as “The Fight To Buy Needed F-22s”?
I love how Republicans LOVE huge wasteful government spending ($5000 toilet lets, $400 hammers, $1.1 billion planes) if it’s military waste and fraud. Then you can’t DARE to mention it or claim it’s un-needed or you hate America. I worked in DC for years. The SAME civil servants and contractors get on the metro in Arlington to go to Pentagon City, Rosslyn, Foggy Bottom, etc. If you hate “the government” I have some news for your. It’s the same politicians, same bureaucrats and same civil servants that move between the DoD, State Dept, IRS, FBI, Dept of Ag, etc.
@#7 It is made in USA and main argument of proponents is that just additional 20 planes would provide jobs for 24000 people. High paying jobs. Now compare that with “stimulus” results in type and number of jobs created/saved per $1 spent. Orders of magnitude better…
PMitchell…SecDef was appointed by whom? Apply your logic to a business case…as a manager of a department I want my staff to have the biggest friggin PCs I can buy, quad core with six LCDs for each developer, plus ergonomic chairs and lights, whatever else. But my VP knows we don’t really need that much, knows the budget could be spent better on other things, and slaps me down to dual-core with two monitors at half the price, which gets the job done. That’s a good analogy for SecDef and generals. IMO
Seriously, is there some objective discussion of this issue somewhere? The last thread on this topic devolved into a discussion of what fighter is best for various scenarios, and which ones are real old and ‘need retired.’ Not being a military guy nor flyer, I don’t know an F-22 from an F-16 from an F-U. All the same to me.
8, Or you can have the liberals whining that we’re sending off troops without being properly equipped.
You can’t defecate these things on command. It takes time.
When a military problem occurs, you go into battle with what you have. Making military equipment can take weeks to months for things to come through the pipeline (i.e. body armor or armor plating Humvees …. a feature they were never designed to have in the first place)
Let’s make a deal.
When the GOP induced recession is over and Repugs cheat their way into power again with the Christian Taliban, we can discuss buying toys for the military.
In the mean time, we stick to the Obama plan of non-military infrastructure spending and healthcare. You know, the shit people care about when they get up on the morning.
So, STFU and come back in 2025. 🙂
It’s a silly waste of money. They’ve saved enough now to cover 5 days of Iraq/Afghan wars.
If you are going to piss money away – and the government is (any doubters?) use it for something like this – needed or not. Better 1000 bullets too many.
As already noted, use the stimulus money to put people to work on something like this, with decent paying jobs. Ever heard of a jobless recovery – I hadn’t, until the past few days.
If the government wasn’t throwing money away as it has been the past few months, I would say shut it down.
I’m amazed that the Senate is defying the Military-Industrial complex… amazingly good news! Hope it lasts…
A new generation of UAV would be fine for stand off weapon platform. Ground support aircraft is what’s needed now, something that can take abuse and get down and dirty. If we need to scramble a bunch of F-22’s, it’s all over anyway.
Sorry liberals and self styled progressives. Many into military think consider these toys to be like gold plated toilet sets.
They cost way to much for what they can do.
The bottom line for next generation military combat gear that does what these machines are supposed to do is to leave the meat on the ground. You get much better performance and you don’t take any causalities.
When you are over a Trillion in the hole. Its about time the government cancelled something in spending. But so many other things go on.
The war in Afghanistan is not going away anytime soon. That’s got to be killing us in debt! If the terrorist can’t beat us in fight they are sure doing a good job helping us go broke!
scrap’em all and break out the electro-gravitic craft(s), i say.
sure, the pentagon overcharges us everything BUT..
first off, If they stop the F-22 program, they MUST uphold the export ban. period. Russia is already on par or better than us tech wise, and letting this tech out will only cause us major grief down the line our F-15 fleet is very tired as evidence of fatigued airframes from 25+yrs of use is mounting…
given that we are about to let Israel drag us into a very dangerous, useless (and insane) war with Iran and by extension Russia, (due to defense contract obligations with Iran–and possibly China)
-I figure no later than November (after the October deadline) we will be warring with countries that for the first time, (possibly ever) that are equal to or superior than us in weapons platforms.
Make no mistake, this war will be very costly. we’ve had a cake walk all these years, tactfully picking on countries that are 20yrs or more behind us overall in weapons technology.
-also of major note is that Iran has full capability to manufacture all their weapons systems *in Iran* and has almost double the manpower on the ground as we do..and their personnel is not spread out all over creation trying to secure pipeline deals like our’s is either. -sad to say, but personally, i don’t think the morons in the white house or congress have a clue about Iran’s military capability.
-Much like Afghanistan, Iran’s population hangs out in the mountains, going in their on the ground will end up being a clusterf*ck -esp given that gaining air superiority will NOT be the cake walk that Iraq was. We used PsyOps/Mind control EMR technology on an unsuspecting Republican Guard in Iraq. Iran has been fully briefed from Russia on the EMR technology we used in Iraq (we initially got/learned most of it from Russia) and has the ability to counter a good portion of it as well as return the favour in kind.
Signing on to a war with Iran will cost us greatly if it extends past one week…going in with a limited supply of advanced front line technology against a foe that has equal footing and a lot more reserve units to spare than us is plain, hugely ignorant, stupidity.
(let’s not forget we as a country are BROKE on top of it – creating major friction with the people who underwrite our debt is…how stupid??
The F35-II is not due to hit the tarmac in production until 2011, iirc. -by then it will be too late.
We will be in a full blown war if not in 4 months, then 8 months *MAX* (-remember, the democrats are the war party and the repubs are the recession/depression/clean up crew party, contrary to what many think)
Obama will lead (and i use “lead” facetiously) us into full blown war, count on it. (more correctly, his puppet masters will. -he’s just a salesman hired to sell the war to the masses)
If they cancel the F-22 on the brink of war without the new platform fully prepped with well-trained maintenance crews, pilots and supply chains *globally* up and running, we will be cremated. -we rely on too many foreign assets as it is for our supplies.
regardless of the 700+ bases we have globally, it would be far too easy for foreign entities to lock us out of our supply chains. -esp if we back Israels pre-emptive strike plans. -we will be seen as [backing] the bad guys (if not already)
IMO, people around the globe are far more fed up with having to deal with Israel’s meddling in their affairs than they are of Iran’s.
Unless we come clean on this war and either leave Israel completely on their own, or better, bomb *them* for an unprovoked attack on Iran, we will be screwed royally.
Personally i see that as the best option out. we have been manipulated and used as “the muscle” and lap dog by Israel for far too long. if we could use this as an opportunity to rid ourselves of that scourge. sorry, but they want to be religious fanatics, fine, let them do it on their own dime and blood. we have already foolishly supplied them with a relatively huge nuclear arsenal as it is.
There is too much political subterfuge going on right now between Iran, Israel and the U.S. (et al)
If we cancel the F-22 before this conflict/war is resolved, or before we have at least 150 f-35’s on the hooks, it will be suicide.
-to think we can even attempt warring on 3 fronts is ludicrous..all our “talent” is long gone. (-it’s not THAT hard to jam our sattelite tech)
Why don’t we hear from the Generals or Field Commanders on the ground? they ultimately know what we need to hold us over until after the F-35’s are on deck. -DefSec Gates is CIA scum and in bed with obama’s handlers. i wouldn’t trust his evaluations if my life depended on it.
-lastly… 40 years since we walked on the moon..and we’re still using the same 40yr old technology to launch into space. -anyone who thinks we have not mastered electrogravitic flight is a complete idiot. the principal legwork was laid out in the late 1800’s, early 1900’s ffs.. if Einstein didn’t go screw up “the science mind” with his bloody theoretical math, we’d probably be 40-50yrs into using it already. -a smart guy [whom i practically idolized growing up] but he completely screwed up modernscience with his theoretical-math crap. almost as bad as what the Catholic Church did to classical science)
Remember in 2001, Rumsfeld announced, “um, we cant find 2.3 trillion dollars” then they proofed the WTC the next day and the statement was never addressed? where do supposed the bulk of the money went? canned ham and Blackwater? -i think [and hope] not.
Lets go Navy & Air Force, stop yanking our chains with this jet powered crap and let loose the technology we should have been using 20 years ago. -our troops will need it now more than ever..
-s
(ok….mmmmaybe i should keep my thoughts to myself..but..)
There are so many other weapons systems that needs more funding. Scraping this old technology will allow for more funding of nextgen weapons.
#4 – PMitchell – I see another Jimmy Carter canceling the B1 bombers fiasco
And shame on Carter for funding B-2 (Stealth Bomber) project instead?
Jimmy Carter never funded the B2 so get over your lying liberal self
The Horrible Piece of shit Presidient did nothing but destroy our military and give our tactical advantages away
ie the Panama canal ( which is now run by the chinese)
he sat by and let the Shaw of Iran fall and brought in the modern well funded radical Islam terror state to the world
shall I go on
15, GOP-induced recession? Strange. Last I heard the Libs have had control of Congress since 2006.
Obama is likely to lose control of Congress in 2010. So you libs had better live it up while you have it good. 🙂
Hopefully “free” universal health care won’t end up like this mess in Canada: http://tinyurl.com/2qm8an
Just curious: is this the first time in Obama’s entire political career (is it 6 years?) that he has ever voted to cut something?
Does he even know how? Someone needs to dig out the “Veto” stamp that Bush lost during his first term.
#24 – PMitchell – Jimmy Carter never funded the B2 so get over your lying liberal self
Sorry for breaking your illusions.
Funny comment about the Shah of Iran! Guess those pesky Iranians had nothing to do with him being deposed.
And, shame on Carter for letting Panama have control of the Panama (!) Canal. After all we did to help them secede from Colombia, too. The ingrates.
BTW- you may want to look into the role the US played with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan when you talk about empowering terrorists. And also the role of rich, religious conservatives in Saudi Arabia (our great, wonderful ally).
The research project that led to the B2 was started under the Carter administration, also.
The F-22 is widely recognized as a new solution to a problem that no longer exists.
Modern weapons platforms are more and more based on the intelligence of their munitions, delivered from long distances and with extreme high performance. We are quickly approaching an era where to dogfighters will never be anywhere near visual range before the fight is over, since the weapons have such great standoff ranges. Even the era of the conventional bomber flying over a target is basically a thing of the past, with precision highly ‘intelligent’ munitions (including air launched cruise missiles) doing a much more effective job.
Having to support innefective weapons systems such as the F-22 puts a severe burden on the military, of which economics is only a minor factor.
#25 – Guyver – Hopefully “free” universal health care won’t end up like this mess in Canada
It’s so much better in the US.