Obama threatens again to veto Defense bill over F-22A.

[MKSheppard]

Link

July 14, 2009
Obama Repeats Threat to Veto Bill Over F-22 Jet
By CHRISTOPHER DREW
President Obama placed his political capital on the line Monday and reiterated his threat to veto a military spending bill unless the Senate removed $1.75 billion set aside to buy seven additional F-22 fighter jets.

Mr. Obama stepped up his campaign after liberal Democrats like Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John Kerry of Massachusetts said they supported the purchases, arguing that the program would retain high-paying jobs in many districts nationwide.

The F-22, the world’s costliest fighter jet, is the most prominent weapons system that Mr. Obama wants to cancel or cut in his plan to rein in military spending. A vote by the Senate to keep producing the plane would be an embarrassing setback for him.

Military analysts say it has always been hard to persuade Congress to halt big weapons programs like the F-22, made by Lockheed Martin, which has suppliers in 44 states and provides 25,000 jobs.

Congress has agreed with Mr. Obama’s plans to cut more experimental programs like missile defense. But support for the F-22 has strengthened recently. As the Senate took up debate on the bill on Monday, Senate leaders said it was hard to predict how the vote would go.

Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator John McCain of Arizona, the panel’s top Republican, are leading the fight to cap F-22 production at 187 planes.

Their committee voted 13-11 in late June to add the money for the seven additional planes. But Mr. Levin and Mr. McCain, who was Mr. Obama’s opponent in the 2008 election, voted against that measure, and they filed an amendment on Monday to remove the money from the bill.

In a letter to Mr. McCain on Monday, Mr. Obama wrote that Pentagon leaders “do not need these planes.”

The Pentagon would rather buy unmanned aircraft to gather intelligence in Afghanistan and accelerate the testing for the F-35, a new plane designed to attack ground targets. Pentagon officials say the F-22 is hard to maintain and costs $44,000 to operate for an hour, compared with $30,000 for older planes.

But many Republicans in Congress say more F-22s, which were designed for aerial combat, are needed as a hedge against countries like China.

And a growing number of Democrats are questioning why the administration would let such high-paying union jobs go when it is spending billions to save or create other jobs.

[Count Chocula]

What, the same President that approved a $1 trillion "stimulus" package loaded with earmarks (which he campaigned against in 2008) is digging in his heels over $1.75 billion? For a fighter to replace our 30+ year old F-15 fleet? Goddamn, this guy's channeling McNamara. Or throwing this out as a distraction while he and his staff work behind the scenes on the Senate "cap & trade" tree-hugger tax bill and stealth (non)universal health care. Bah.

[K. A. Pital]

If the procurement is ending anyway, 7 more planes mean nothing.

[Darth Wong]

Perhaps Shep should write a fan fiction where the US is invaded by Russian paratroopers parachuting into the midwest and gunning down schoolteachers, and those seven F-22s could have made the difference. Without them, Patrick Swayze dies, the entire resistance fails, and the Red Menace conquers all.

[Count Chocula]

Ooh! With the F-22s in full play, we could call the fanfic Crimson Sunset. I'd read that.

[Vympel]

It says a lot about the USA that they rail against government handouts and socialism but yet make arguments that the F-22A shouldn't be canceled because people will lose their jobs. Because the military-industrial complex is a giant welfare program, and they should build expensive weapon systems purely to keep people employed.

[Stargate Nerd]

What, the same President that approved a $1 trillion "stimulus" package loaded with earmarks (which he campaigned against in 2008) is digging in his heels over $1.75 billion?

Earmarks like monitoring volcanoes and spending on fighting potential epidemics/pandemics, huh?

[The Spartan]

It says a lot about the USA that they rail against government handouts and socialism but yet make arguments that the F-22A shouldn't be canceled because people will lose their jobs. Because the military-industrial complex is a giant welfare program, and they should build expensive weapon systems purely to keep people employed.

Their reasoning is probably quite simple: Because those handouts don't protect America and the F22 does.

[Darth Yoshi]

Isn't the F-22 horribly overpowered for pretty much anything that the USAF is likely to face until the end of its operational lifespan? That's the impression that I've gotten; I'll gladly retract if wrong.

[Straha]

It says a lot about the USA that they rail against government handouts and socialism but yet make arguments that the F-22A shouldn't be canceled because people will lose their jobs. Because the military-industrial complex is a giant welfare program, and they should build expensive weapon systems purely to keep people employed.

Their reasoning is probably quite simple: Because those handouts don't protect America and the F22 does.

Also because, as J points out in another thread, the handouts aren't actually fixing the economy or putting money into people's hands and most of the money that's spent has been Pork Barrel funding or Medicaid (which due to its incompetence and inefficiency is widely perceived as throwing money down a well).

Isn't the F-22 horribly overpowered for pretty much anything that the USAF is likely to face until the end of its operational lifespan? That's the impression that I've gotten; I'll gladly retract if wrong.

You're right. Actually, that's half the beauty of it from the Air Force's point of view. By having the F-22 in sufficient numbers they're actually saving money (in their eyes) overall because:

1.) Because no other nation can conceivably take on the F-22 in the next twenty years it follows that no nation will try to vie for Air Superiority which saves the U.S. (and its allies) money because then it doesn't have to build an even bigger Air Force.

2.) If any nation does try to get the capability to take on the F-22 the U.S. will see it coming a mile away and be able to maintain its technological lead by spending pennies to the other nation's dollars.

[MKSheppard]

By having the F-22 in sufficient numbers they're actually saving money (in their eyes) overall because

Because you know, our fleet of F-15s and F-16s will last forever. That midflight distengration of a F-15 a while back which resulted in a permanent speed limit on the early F-15s? Never happened Comrade.

[The Dark]

By having the F-22 in sufficient numbers they're actually saving money (in their eyes) overall because

Because you know, our fleet of F-15s and F-16s will last forever. That midflight distengration of a F-15 a while back which resulted in a permanent speed limit on the early F-15s? Never happened Comrade.

I don't know about the F-15s, but we can still make Falcons, in the Block 50/52+ configuration, the exported Block 60, and the F-16IN Super Viper. To be honest, if Congress is going to dick around with these piddly quantities, it's probably better to kill it outright. Building seven planes won't use the capacity of the specialized equipment and personnel needed, so it'll be more costly on a per-unit cost than building more aircraft.

[MKSheppard]

I don't know about the F-15s, but we can still make Falcons, in the Block 50/52+ configuration, the exported Block 60, and the F-16IN Super Viper.

Considering that you know; modern F-16s cost about $50~ million each; and modern F-15s about $80 million; you're not getting a better deal than for a $110~ million F-22A which needs 14 last generation fighters opposing it before it's in danger of being shot down.

[Alyeska]

Isn't the F-22 horribly overpowered for pretty much anything that the USAF is likely to face until the end of its operational lifespan? That's the impression that I've gotten; I'll gladly retract if wrong.

Under that line of reasoning, the F15 itself is horribly overpriced. The F22 is expensive, but not excessively so. Its costs are about 50-60% higher than a brand new F15. Its capabilities are significantly higher than this.

[The Spartan]

Also because, as J points out in another thread, the handouts aren't actually fixing the economy or putting money into people's hands and most of the money that's spent has been Pork Barrel funding or Medicaid (which due to its incompetence and inefficiency is widely perceived as throwing money down a well).

Yeah that too.

[The Dark]

I don't know about the F-15s, but we can still make Falcons, in the Block 50/52+ configuration, the exported Block 60, and the F-16IN Super Viper.

Considering that you know; modern F-16s cost about $50~ million each; and modern F-15s about $80 million; you're not getting a better deal than for a $110~ million F-22A which needs 14 last generation fighters opposing it before it's in danger of being shot down.

Closer to $63-65 million for the F-16IN. Block 50+ is around $34 million, but isn't as capable. Block 60's hard to tell exact cost because the UAE paid for the whole thing, including development costs.

[Julhelm]

Also the F-16 like the F-15 and F/A-18 is a late 1960's design that doesn't take advantage of more recent developments in aeronautics. Just because you upgrade the avionics and add "bolt-on" stealth and conformal tanks doesn't mean the design itself doesn't become obsolete.

[Straha]

By having the F-22 in sufficient numbers they're actually saving money (in their eyes) overall because

Because you know, our fleet of F-15s and F-16s will last forever. That midflight distengration of a F-15 a while back which resulted in a permanent speed limit on the early F-15s? Never happened Comrade.

Exactly. You did get the memo about how we don't need any new air craft at all and how the entire thing is a gigantic hoax designed to line the pockets of Lockheed Martin... Right?

[Simon_Jester]

Perhaps Shep should write a fan fiction where the US is invaded by Russian paratroopers parachuting into the midwest and gunning down schoolteachers, and those seven F-22s could have made the difference. Without them, Patrick Swayze dies, the entire resistance fails, and the Red Menace conquers all.

That'd be tricky. If the first two hundred didn't stop them, one wonders how the next seven would.

Considering that you know; modern F-16s cost about $50~ million each; and modern F-15s about $80 million; you're not getting a better deal than for a $110~ million F-22A which needs 14 last generation fighters opposing it before it's in danger of being shot down.

That depends. One F-16 can drop twice as many bombs as one F-22A, and we've spent a lot more time dropping bombs than shooting down planes lately.

Remember that we already have quite a lot of F-22s, and that no one seriously proposes to keep making them at a significant rate for the next ten or twenty years. Sooner or later, we're going to shut down the factory that builds them; and most of the ones that are going to be built in any realistic context already have been. If we don't have something like enough now, blame Bush; if we do have about enough now, paying the assembly line and subcomponent workers for another four years to build a dozen more doesn't make much sense.