The F-22 Raptor is considered by military experts and Georgia Senators to be the most sophisticated fighter jet in the world. It comes with a wide array of missile and bomb delivery options and uses stealth technology to avoid radar detection.
The only serious flaw is that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said we don’t need many more of them. He didn’t exactly kill the program, the latest budget called for the purchase of only four more of the $137.5 million plane, some of which will be built down the road in Marietta at Lockheed. [If you research the costs of the plane, different figures pop up depending on how the original research and development expense is calculated.]
The air force at one point wanted 60 more F-22s to give them 243. In August of 2007, the department of defense signed a $5 billion contract to purchase 20 planes per year until 2011.
But in April of this year, Gates decided that the 183 F-22 in-service, in production or on order is enough.
Gates may have a point. According to the Secretary of Defense’s statement, the F-22 has not been used a single time in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Apparently, these super-fast, high-tech jets, are more suited to fighting other superpowers with advanced weapons than battling guerillas in the desserts.
Air Force officials have since switched their tune, saying that they prefer F-35s, a cheaper plane with more ability to hit ground targets.
The F-22’s stealth technology can’t hide the fact that at least some percentage of the program is pork. We clearly don’t need 60 more jets, in a model we’re not using. In this case, however, it’s our pork.
This is a classic case of America’s government spending problem. It’s easy to decry unnecessary spending, but it’s hard to label as pork government dollars that produce jobs and benefits in your town.
Both Georgia senators, Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss, have decried the loss of this valuable plane for our air defense. Both have spent an equal amount of time making it clear that there is a serious economic impact with the loss of this program.
In a joint statement, Chambliss was blunt in noting that the Obama administration is spending all sorts of bailout money and we might as well spend it on a plane system as well.
According to the joint statement from Chambliss and Isakson, there are 95,000 jobs tied nationwide to the production of this plane. The defense department has other planes that they will continue to buy from Lockheed and while they cut back Raptors, they may increase other aircraft orders, so it may be as traumatic as the Georgia senators claim.
Our senators, both financial conservatives, decry outlandish government spending, but then fight tooth and nail for every cent they can bring home to Georgia.
It would interesting to poll all the activists in “tea parties” who are against unnecessary spending on how they feel about spending $5 billion on something a department director says we don’t use and don’t need. Then mention these are fighter jets and tied to employment of Pickens residents at Lockheed. Hmmm maybe it’s not as clear-cut as the Fox pundits make it appear.
True: If we’re bailing out other companies, we might as well spend it on the planes as an economic incentive. But it’s exactly this style of government spending on things not needed that must be corralled. The problem is where to start? Why should we sacrifice our jobs tied to planes, when Detroit accepts money for their jobs tied to cars?
If the nation is going to roll wheelbarrows full of money out for unproductive uses, some might as well come to our backyard. Long-range, however, something has got to change and it’s not as simple as empty rhetoric on government excess. |
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