Gates: Future Jet Supporters are Risking Today’s Troops

[SirNitram]

Potentially relevent, given the importance of Stealth in the F-22, and the maintence issues(As I'd assume stressing the frame is going to cause more of those.): Link

A whistleblower lawsuit accuses defense giant Lockheed Martin of defrauding the Air Force by using defective outer coatings on its F-22 Raptor stealth fighter and lying about meeting contract deadlines.

Darrol Olsen, a stealth engineer, filed the lawsuit two years ago in federal district court in California. The documents were unsealed in May.

Olsen worked at Lockheed Martin from 1995 to 1999, the same years the lawsuit states the fraud occurred. He was fired in November 1999 for “refusal to follow company policy,” according to court papers.

Olsen’s attorney, Samuel L. Boyd of Dallas, is out of the country and cannot be reached for comment, according his office.

Lockheed Martin denies the charges.

“While we are aware of the Olsen lawsuit, the corporation has not yet been served in this matter. We deny Mr. Olsen’s allegations and will vigorously defend this matter if and when it is served,” said spokesman Rob Fuller in a statement.

Lockheed Martin, Olsen alleges, applied extra layers of the coating so the jet could pass the stealth tests required by the Air Force. More than one layer was needed, according to the lawsuit, because the coating smears and rubs off when exposed to jet fuel and solvents. The additional layers passed only some of the tests, according to the lawsuit.

The extra layers, according to court papers, added as much as 600 pounds to the plane, stressing its airframe.

Olsen, the lawsuit states, was told by superiors “to have no communication at all with the USAF.”

The Air Force refused to comment on the lawsuit other than to state the coating’s “performance has been demonstrated successfully through multiple test activities” sponsored and conducted by the government.

Olsen is a stealth expert, according to the lawsuit, having also worked on Lockheed Martin’s F-117 Night Hawk stealth aircraft and Northrop Grumman’s B-2 Spirit stealth bomber.

[MKSheppard]

Potentially relevent, given the importance of Stealth

Problem has been fixed. Look at the date of this - 1996 to 1999; it's now 2009; and we're ten years ahead in stealth coatings -- I also recall that around this time frame, the B-2 had problems with rain impacting it's coatings.

[SirNitram]

Potentially relevent, given the importance of Stealth

Problem has been fixed. Look at the date of this - 1996 to 1999; it's now 2009; and we're ten years ahead in stealth coatings -- I also recall that around this time frame, the B-2 had problems with rain impacting it's coatings.

Those dates only correspond to the whistleblower's time working there. The lawsuit was opened this may, by the writing, and it was written July 2nd, 2009. I don't trust a company to stop skimping just because time passed. Can't comment on the B-2, though.

[Pelranius]

Hmm. So apparently China has inked contracts with 611 Institute for the J-14 (formerly J-XX), to begin development of it, with an IOC set for 2015/2020.

Tentatively, it will have stealth comparable to, or better than EF2000 or Rafale; but less than F-22.

Yeah, word has it that Chengdu and Shenyang Aircraft Corporations are building the prototype right now. Rumors suggest either it looks like the MiG 1.44 technology demonstrator or resembles the layout of the YF-23 Black Widow.

That and the PAK-FA would probably knock some sense into Congress and the DoD bureaucracy. Now I'd better go on the other forums and start screaming things.

[Stuart]

The US are NOT continually cutting Raptor production. That would require continued Raptor production to be actually HAPPENING. It's NOT.
They absolutely DID, and I happen to agree it was a bad idea, but it's a done deal, and another 7 birds ISN'T going to make any worthwhile difference.

It's not another seven birds. It's another seven birds this year. The U.S. Defense budget system works on yearly production; each annual financial budget contains allocations and authorizations (the two are different) for a specific number of units of whatever (ranging from aircraft carriers to rounds of rifle ammunition). The proposed budget goes to the House and the Senate (in specifics, to the HASC and the SASC) who go through the defense budget and "mark it up". As part of the mark-up, they add and subtract funding for various programs and alter the numbers of units procured. This results in two defense budgets, one produced by the House, the other produced by the Senate. The two bills then go to Conference where the differences between them are resolved to produce the final defense budget. That goes back to House and Senate where it gets approved and then goes to the President for signature. Next year, the whole procedure is repeated.

So, the significance of these seven birds is not that they represent the total production add-on but that they extend funding for another year. Next year, another seven could easily be added, extending production for one more year and so on. Technically, it's possible to extend production for more than a decade that way. A good example is the C-130J. There are 100 C-130Js in U.S. service but the U.S. armed forces have never requested one. Every single C-130J has been added to the defense budget by the House and Senate.

That's why Gates and Obama are so upset about this add-on. It destroys their plan to kill off F-22 production. There's a serious war going on between the armed forces and Gates at the moment, it's fair to say there's nobody in the senior ranks of the forces who has any faith or trust in Gates. The USAF want a lot more F-22s and quietly make that known direct to House and Senate. Those bodies have listened to them and their logic, found it compelling, and have responded by adding enough aircraft to keep the production line alive. Next year, they'll almost certainly do the same.

[Elfdart]

Let them cry. Fuck 'em.

So what is your fucking brilliant plan to replace our F-15 and F-16 fleet as it ages?

You're right: the F-22s we already have will suddenly stop flying.

We might also consider (a) closing most of our 700-800 overseas bases and (b) not being the belligerent prick of Planet Earth, and (c) both. Fewer fighter planes of all classes would be needed.

In the world of Yellow Rain Man:

All the F-22s planned (hundreds of planes) = OK

All the F-22s planned, minus seven = My penis is shrinking! Help meeeeeeeeee!

[Vympel]

That's why Gates and Obama are so upset about this add-on. It destroys their plan to kill off F-22 production. There's a serious war going on between the armed forces and Gates at the moment, it's fair to say there's nobody in the senior ranks of the forces who has any faith or trust in Gates. The USAF want a lot more F-22s and quietly make that known direct to House and Senate. Those bodies have listened to them and their logic, found it compelling, and have responded by adding enough aircraft to keep the production line alive. Next year, they'll almost certainly do the same.

Not if Obama vetoes this as he threatens, in which case the program will die now and that'll be the end of it. Of course, Obama appears to have no balls whatsoever and AFAIK has done nothing remotely decisive since being elected, so I doubt things will change whatsoever. I'm sure he'll cave on this too. He caves on everything.

[Elfdart]

The US are NOT continually cutting Raptor production. That would require continued Raptor production to be actually HAPPENING. It's NOT.
They absolutely DID, and I happen to agree it was a bad idea, but it's a done deal, and another 7 birds ISN'T going to make any worthwhile difference.

So, the significance of these seven birds is not that they represent the total production add-on but that they extend funding for another year. Next year, another seven could easily be added, extending production for one more year and so on. Technically, it's possible to extend production for more than a decade that way. A good example is the C-130J. There are 100 C-130Js in U.S. service but the U.S. armed forces have never requested one. Every single C-130J has been added to the defense budget by the House and Senate.

Wouldn't maintenance agreements* alone keep some of the production going anyway? Or does the Pentagon not do extended service contracts like private buyers of aircraft?

* I'm assuming they have these.

That's why Gates and Obama are so upset about this add-on. It destroys their plan to kill off F-22 production. There's a serious war going on between the armed forces and Gates at the moment, it's fair to say there's nobody in the senior ranks of the forces who has any faith or trust in Gates. The USAF want a lot more F-22s and quietly make that known direct to House and Senate. Those bodies have listened to them and their logic, found it compelling, and have responded by adding enough aircraft to keep the production line alive. Next year, they'll almost certainly do the same.

Their "logic" consists of "Some of your constituents might lose jobs.", not some logical conclusion on whether the country needs or wants the planes. That's why (as Chalmers Johnson said) liberal senators from a liberal state like Washington, when any aircraft maker faces the possibility of being pulled off the teat for the briefest amount of time, turn out to be about as "liberal" as Il Duce.

Not if Obama vetoes this as he threatens, in which case the program will die now and that'll be the end of it. Of course, Obama appears to have no balls whatsoever and AFAIK has done nothing remotely decisive since being elected, so I doubt things will change whatsoever. I'm sure he'll cave on this too. He caves on everything.

How true.

[Void]

Hmm. So apparently China has inked contracts with 611 Institute for the J-14 (formerly J-XX), to begin development of it, with an IOC set for 2015/2020.

Tentatively, it will have stealth comparable to, or better than EF2000 or Rafale; but less than F-22.

If that's the best the Chinese can do the USAF can just keep flying F-16's and F-15's for the next thirty years.

It's all a terribly dishonest marketing ploy to disguise European fighters like the Eurofighter, Rafael and Gripen bring very little in the way of new capabilities to the table compared to U.S. offerings like the F-35 or even the latest incarnations of the "teen series". None of them are stealth, or even sort of stealth, aircraft. They're no different than the Super Hornet with it's reduced frontal RCS. That reduction of RCS is not going to be huge either, maybe tenfold against the thousands fold reduction on the F-22 (or the F-35) compared to older aircraft.

They'll still be detected at great distance by radar.

Even the Silent Eagle would be a far stealthier aircraft.

[Stuart]

Wouldn't maintenance agreements* alone keep some of the production going anyway? Or does the Pentagon not do extended service contracts like private buyers of aircraft? I'm assuming they have these.

No, the problem is the production line per se. The jigs, tooling (most of which is customized for that particular aircraft) skill-sets and so on. One the production line is dismantled and the workforce dispersed to other programs, re-establishing it will cost a fortune. It is possible (for example, the production line for the RA-5C Vigilante was actually re-established after being idle for three years) but the costs are eye-watering. Maintenance doesn't really being to cover the work needed, it's something of a help but only partially. Rebuilds and modernizations help as well but there's no real substitute for production.

Their "logic" consists of "Some of your constituents might lose jobs.", not some logical conclusion on whether the country needs or wants the planes. That's why (as Chalmers Johnson said) liberal senators from a liberal state like Washington, when any aircraft maker faces the possibility of being pulled off the teat for the briefest amount of time, turn out to be about as "liberal" as Il Duce.

Good for them The military logic though is that the presently-prescribed force level is inadequate to guarantee a long-term presence, attrition and so on will push the numbers down too fast. Also, there is a basis of maintenance and skill sets that are independent of the size of the aircraft fleet; we have to have that basis regardless of whether we fly one aircraft or one thousand. That's what makes small numbers of aircraft so incredibly expensive to operate (the SR-71 was the worst candidate for that, the aircraft was never mass-produced, each aircraft was pretty much hand-built. So, there wasn't a class of 32 SR-71s, there were 32 variants of the SR-71, each of which required its own supply-train, handbooks, ground crew etc. That made them horribly expensive top operate). Now, the standardization thing only kicks in after a set number of aircraft have been built, the early production examples all have minor variations while the production line shakes down. Typically the first 50 - 100 aircraft off the line tend to be hangar queens for that reason. That's why the B-2 is also an expensive bird to operate, there aren't 20 of them, there are 20 one-aircraft tranches. So, with only 184 aircraft built, only about half will actually be fully serviceable. The rest will be used for training and visiting airshows.

Of course, Obama appears to have no balls whatsoever and AFAIK has done nothing remotely decisive since being elected, so I doubt things will change whatsoever. I'm sure he'll cave on this too. He caves on everything.

Thank God for small mercies.

[Starglider]

It's all a terribly dishonest marketing ploy to disguise European fighters like the Eurofighter, Rafael and Gripen bring very little in the way of new capabilities to the table compared to U.S. offerings like the F-35 or even the latest incarnations of the "teen series". None of them are stealth, or even sort of stealth, aircraft.

What capabilities matter, in your world, other than stealth? Unlike the F-15, the Eurofighter supercruises with a combat load, and it has considerably more range and significantly better maneuverability. Even for stealth; it isn't an RCS-optimised design, but it has about a quarter of the Tornado's RCS, which cuts about 30% off the radar detection range, a useful improvement. There are some deficiencies in the avionics compared to the F-35, but that isn't surprising considering that the Typhoon has been in series production for five years while the F-35 is still in pre-production.

The Rafale and the Grippen are rather less impressive, but I haven't seen anyone making them out to be except marketeers and nationalist fanboys.

[Simon_Jester]

Also, there are a lot of airframes we stopped manufacturing that remain in service for decades; maintenance is possible.

You mean like the B-52? Guess what happens if we find a wing spar problem? The entire fleet is gone; forbidding a very expensive re-winging program.

"Decades" means "more than one decade," not "more than five decades." At this point, we've been using them for fifty years, and that is too long... but using them for twenty and thirty years wasn't.

The fact that we stopped manufacturing B-52s in 1962 didn't mean that we wouldn't have the airframes in 1982, or even 1992. The US Air Force has been designing its procurement to build a run of jets and then use them for twenty or thirty years afterwards as routine policy since the mid-Cold War; I think it's a safe bet to say that the policy works tolerably well.

We don't lose the aircraft the moment the factory stops churning out new ones.

Then you better start designing it NOW; considering the F-22A has taken 20~ years to go from initial ATF concept to squadron service.

Yes, we had, I agree. I strongly suspect that the Air Force is doing exactly that, or will be in the very near future. However, at this point, such a program is likely to be deeply classified, so I don't know a damn thing about it and can't prove that it exists to your satisfaction. Sorry.

Once the production line is closed; it's closed for good. No more F-22As will be available in the future, if we need more; or to replace attrition losses.

This is not a new problem. We've done it before (with the B-52, the B-1, the A-10, the older versions of the F-15... you get the picture). Production facilities are too expensive to keep running indefinitely at this point.

Then one wonders why the Next Generation Bomber was also killed as it would have offered far more (and more useful) bomb delivery capability than the F-35.

Because much of the Air Force is in denial about what its job needs to be, and because the people in denial have enough bureaucratic clout to make it impossible to get anything useful past them if it doesn't appease them hard enough?
______

If the F-22 fleet as we now have it is grossly undersized for what we'll need it for, then we do need to keep building more. I'd love to see the numbers behind the Air Force's claims that we do need to keep building more, though, because I'm somewhat skeptical.

[Void]

It's all a terribly dishonest marketing ploy to disguise European fighters like the Eurofighter, Rafael and Gripen bring very little in the way of new capabilities to the table compared to U.S. offerings like the F-35 or even the latest incarnations of the "teen series". None of them are stealth, or even sort of stealth, aircraft.

What capabilities matter, in your world, other than stealth? Unlike the F-15, the Eurofighter supercruises with a combat load, and it has considerably more range and significantly better maneuverability. Even for stealth; it isn't an RCS-optimised design, but it has about a quarter of the Tornado's RCS, which cuts about 30% off the radar detection range, a useful improvement. There are some deficiencies in the avionics compared to the F-35, but that isn't surprising considering that the Typhoon has been in series production for five years while the F-35 is still in pre-production.

The Rafale and the Grippen are rather less impressive, but I haven't seen anyone making them out to be except marketeers and nationalist fanboys.

Everything matters, but stealth is almost a prerequisite for survival against modern SAMs unless a nation invests very heavily in electronic warfare equipment. Since most Eurofighter users haven't bothered to do this, and most potential customers aren't interested in doing this it leaves the aircraft in a very unhappy place when faced with advanced SAMs.

Supercruise and agility are nice for air superiority but no aircraft can outrun or out-turn the missiles from an S-300 or any other comparable SAM. Israel has realized this and invested heavily in electronic attack which paid dividends when they flew right through Syria's dense SAM network without raising an eyebrow.

But no potential buyer wants to hear that they really should invest in electronic warfare to get the most out of their aircraft. So instead the Eurofighter gets touted as stealthy to in defiance of the fact it plainly isn't.

[Coyote]

Their "logic" consists of "Some of your constituents might lose jobs.", not some logical conclusion on whether the country needs or wants the planes. That's why (as Chalmers Johnson said) liberal senators from a liberal state like Washington, when any aircraft maker faces the possibility of being pulled off the teat for the briefest amount of time, turn out to be about as "liberal" as Il Duce.

Good for them

Bah. Congressional pushing for more spending on these planes is related solely to keeping themselves elected by providing jobs for a program that may or may not be useful. Congress's willingness to promote or bury things based on self-serving interests rather than realistic needs is well-recorded.

The F-22 is a good plane and very useful; no doubt about that. In this case, it may be a good investment, but this is a broken clock hitting its 'right-spot' IMO. Shoving unneeded or unasked for toys down the DoD's throat just because some Senator or Representative gets a cookie for it back home wastes money spent on other things that are needed.

I do NOT like that Obama caves on everything. But a large part of the problem is that Legislators, both Repub and Dem, are so busy sucking off the corporate swine that they won't back him up no matter what he tries to do to cut back on some of the bullshit. The Democrat's 60-Senator majority is useless-- they won't use it to pass what needs to be passed, and they will use it to override any veto that needs to be stamped.

[Ma Deuce]

Not if Obama vetoes this as he threatens, in which case the program will die now and that'll be the end of it.

Not if the Senate passes it by a veto-proof 67 votes or more, which given the overwhelming support the same bill was voted on by the House (389-22) doesn't seem too unlikely: Some senators who opposed inclusion of the F-22 funding might not consider it worth voting down the entire bill (including Carl Levin, who recently managed to get a hate crimes bill tacked on as a rider).

Honestly, a veto-proof vote seems like the least worse outcome for Obama politically, as it avoids the shitstorm that actually killing the bill (including the aforementioned hate crimes rider) would produce, as well as the appearance of weakness from refusing to veto after threatening to.

[Stuart]

Congressional pushing for more spending on these planes is related solely to keeping themselves elected by providing jobs for a program that may or may not be useful. Congress's willingness to promote or bury things based on self-serving interests rather than realistic needs is well-recorded.

Oh, I agree the motives don't bear too close looking into. Still, as long as we get the aircraft, I'll give them a pass on that. (in passing, the odd thing is how often Congress has added in things for its own reasons and later they turned out to have done the right thing. The C-130J and extending C-17 production are good cases of that)

The F-22 is a good plane and very useful; no doubt about that. In this case, it may be a good investment, but this is a broken clock hitting its 'right-spot' IMO. Shoving unneeded or unasked for toys down the DoD's throat just because some Senator or Representative gets a cookie for it back home wastes money spent on other things that are needed.

True, but getting something right once a year is pretty good by any government's standards. We've got the system we have and we're stuck with it. The only real option is to try and make it work.

I do NOT like that Obama caves on everything.

I do. Now if he'd and his entire government would only resign en masse. . . . . .

[Redleader34]

Doesn't rain make the F-22 malfunction, which seems silly but if a bit of weather hurts the plane, it will either have to launch from the USA or be useless in forward bases which are rainy (I'm looking at you Guam). I mean we have troops that need body armor, and with the future looking like a land where UCAVs and infantry support is going to be king, shouldn't we make a A-10 extension, rebuild the cobra fleet, or invest in unmanned air units?

[Coyote]

Now if he'd and his entire government would only resign en masse. . . . . .

What for? They're essentially non-entities as it is. They're basically doing the GOP's bidding only adding a coat of Dem paint to it. The only thing they're putting up a real fight for is Health Care reform, and it's a half-assed fight and being done only because some of the corporations have realized that shucking off health care from themselves and onto government is good for their bottom lines. On pretty much everything else the Dems have proven to be exceptionally compliant lapdogs.

This is like seeing Patton's victorious troops roll into Germany in 1945 and just drive themselves to POW camps and tossing the keys back over the fence to the astonished Germans.

[Medic]

Doesn't rain make the F-22 malfunction, which seems silly but if a bit of weather hurts the plane, it will either have to launch from the USA or be useless in forward bases which are rainy (I'm looking at you Guam). I mean we have troops that need body armor, and with the future looking like a land where UCAVs and infantry support is going to be king, shouldn't we make a A-10 extension, rebuild the cobra fleet, or invest in unmanned air units?

Yeah... the problem with this tact is that the F-22 program isn't an enormous THIS OR THAT proposition; as a stand-alone product it is expensive but it's only available, to buy now, which is the catch. Funding it doesn't mean we don't get body armor, or UAV's and relatively minor lifecycle extension for major systems.

But really, body armor? OIF I / II anyone? We're already fielding follow-ons to the body armor we were short of early in OIF, there's enough now that the Interceptor-series body armor trickles down into TRADOC for all the basic trainees.

[Guardsman Bass]

Looks like the F-22's supporters in the Senate just lost, although it was close-

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted 58-40 on Tuesday to strip $1.75 billion for seven more F-22 fighters from a military spending bill, handing President Obama a crucial victory in his efforts to reshape the military’s priorities.

The F-22, the world’s most advanced fighter, had become a flashpoint in a larger battle over the administration’s push to shift more of the Pentagon’s resources from conventional warfare to fighting insurgencies.

The plane’s supporters, who ranged from hawkish Republicans to Democrats close to organized labor, also voiced concern over the possible loss of high-paying manufacturing jobs at a time when the economy is in turmoil.

Senate aides said that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, pushed hard to rally support for the president through phone calls to crucial senators.

The aides added that some Democrats who might have voted for more of the planes stuck with the president out of concern that a loss on the F-22 could have hurt him politically in the tougher fight over health-care reform.

Mr. Obama also received some crucial support on the F-22 vote from his Republican rival in last year’s presidential election, Senator John McCain of Arizona.

Senator McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who chairs the committee, sponsored the amendment to strip the money for the F-22 out of the bill.

Despite Mr. Obama’s veto threat, that committee voted 13-11 on June 25 to shift the $1.75 billion from other parts of the Pentagon’s budget for 2010 to add the seven planes to the 187 that have already been built or ordered.

Three Democrats, including long-time Senate leaders like Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, joined most the panel’s Republicans in approving the extra money.

But Senator Levin and Senator McCain both opposed the measure then and promised to take the fight to the Senate floor, where Senator Levin said on Tuesday that 187 was “all that we need to buy, that is all that we can afford to buy, and that is all that we should buy.”

In Tuesday’s vote on the Senate floor, Senator Byrd continued to support the plane, and Senator Kennedy, who is suffering from cancer, was absent.

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, who had also voiced support for plane, voted Tuesday against additional financing on Tuesday. But other prominent Democrats like Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, and Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both of California, voted to preserve the financing. Connecticut and California both have a substantial numbers of jobs invested in the planes.

The House has voted to keep the plane alive — by providing $369 million to buy advanced parts for 12 more F-22s. Ultimately, a conference committee will decide the next step.

Still, military analysts said that the supporters of the plane — led by Senator Saxby Chambliss, a Republican from Georgia, where the final assembly of the planes is done — had come much closer to saving the F-22 than most experts had expected when Mr. Gates announced plans in April to cancel it and other high-profile weapons systems.

Critics have long portrayed the F-22 a Cold War relic. The plane was designed in the late 1980s, when the Air Force envisioned buying up to 750 of the planes to dominate dogfights with Soviet jets.

The F-22 can perform tactical operations at higher altitudes than other fighters, and it can cruise at supersonic speeds without using telltale afterburners. With a stealthy skin that scatters radar detection signals, it was also meant to sneak in and destroy enemy surface-to-air missile defenses, clearing the way for bombers and other planes to follow.

But the F-22 has never been used in war, and in recent years, the Pentagon’s focus had shifted to the fights against Islamic insurgents. And the Bush administration also tried to halt its production.

Proponents say more of the planes are needed as insurance for possible wars with countries like China and Iran.

They also would like to keep the production lines open to see if allies like Japan want to buy the plane, though that would require overturning a law banning its export.

The jobs issue became another rallying cry as the economy deteriorated and the Obama administration pushed through huge stimulus plans to save other types of jobs.

Lockheed Martin has estimated that work on the plane provides 25,000 jobs and indirectly supports up to 70,000 others.

But the Pentagon is now in the process of shifting its focus away from preparing for two major wars at the same time. Instead, Mr. Gates wants the military to prepare for a broader mix of possibilities, like one conventional war and one long-running battle against insurgents.

And under that plan, top Air Force leaders have agreed that they could make do with the 187 F-22s already built or ordered, instead of the 381 that the service had still sought a few months ago.

Besides calling lawmakers to seek their votes, Mr. Gates gave an impassioned speech in Chicago last week, saying “If we can’t get this right, what on earth can we get right?”

Mr. Gates also argued that the F-22 was a “niche, silver-bullet solution” for only a few potential situations. He said the Pentagon needs to shift to a new fighter, the F-35, and accelerate its testing and production.

The Pentagon plans to build 2,400 F-35s, which will also be used by the Navy and the Marines and is designed to attack ground targets. Military officials have said that by 2020, they should have almost 1,100 F-35s and F-22s, while China will still not have any equivalent fighters.

[Ma Deuce]

I do. Now if he'd and his entire government would only resign en masse. . . . . .

You may very well get your wish, though probably not for the reason you want: if the economy does take another major nosedive as many on this board believe it will, the Obama administration is going to be left holding the bag.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

Holy crap. It looks like the LGBT Hate Crimes bill is going to become law now that Obama won't be vetoing the defense bill.

[Stuart]

Holy crap. It looks like the LGBT Hate Crimes bill is going to become law now that Obama won't be vetoing the defense bill.

It doesn't work that way. The Senate and House versions of the budget are parallel, not sequential. At the moment there are two defense budgets, one House budget that contains the F-22 and the Senate one that does not. Both budgets now go to Conference were the differences between them get ironed out. The compromise budget then goes back to the House for approval, then (assuming its gets approved) to the Senate for approval and then to the WH for signature. The F-22s may stay in, they may go. likewise the ammendments and other irrelevent clauses.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

Holy crap. It looks like the LGBT Hate Crimes bill is going to become law now that Obama won't be vetoing the defense bill.

It doesn't work that way. The Senate and House versions of the budget are parallel, not sequential. At the moment there are two defense budgets, one House budget that contains the F-22 and the Senate one that does not. Both budgets now go to Conference were the differences between them get ironed out. The compromise budget then goes back to the House for approval, then (assuming its gets approved) to the Senate for approval and then to the WH for signature. The F-22s may stay in, they may go. likewise the ammendments and other irrelevent clauses.

Well, what are the chances of that the F-22 funding will remain in the final bill?

[Darksider]

I do. Now if he'd and his entire government would only resign en masse. . . . . .

Exactly what is it you don't like about Obama's government?