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Congress Strikes Back
June 18, 2009 | Posted by Abu Muqawama - 9:51am | 5 Comments
WASHINGTON -- Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F-22 program got an unexpected lift Wednesday after House lawmakers approved $369 million to continue production of the radar-evading fighter jets. The surprise amendment, likely to reopen a debate over the necessity of the Cold War planes that cost $140 million each, was approved by the House Armed Services Committee. Republicans largely backed the measure and were joined by a handful of Democrats in a 31-30 vote.
lol. Now watch the
lol.
Now watch the missiledefence shit get approved. And Star Wars. woohoo.
http://www.strategypage.com/h
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htproc/articles/20090616.aspx
"June 16, 2009: The United States is cutting weapons purchases by 20 percent next year. That means $33 billion less sales for American manufacturers. That's going to mean sharp cuts for the five U.S. manufacturers that account for most of the sales. These five corporations, led by Boeing (with about $30 billion in annual sales), have unleashed their lobbyists to try and reverse some of these cuts. The lobbyists have some powerful allies. Politicians from the states, and congressional districts where the equipment is made, are sensitive to the job loss. These threatened politicians often work together to keep these jobs, and they are a formidable coalition."
My advice for Boeing and Lockheed would be to go after the $6 billion that was set aside for Project Bioshield - mostly crap projects with a dangerous dual-use tinge (i.e. biological threat assessment), because the real truth is that defense against large-scale biowarfare attacks is about as plausible as defense against large-scale nuclear missile attacks - all the scenarios agree. That, after all, is why the Soviet Union developed a massive biowarfare program - it was as effective as nuclear but a whole lot cheaper. Indeed, scaling back the incredibly wasteful and low-performing U.S. nuclear and biological warfare programs could save billions which could be used to keep far more important and realistic programs alive.
And the Osprey is deploying
And the Osprey is deploying to Af/Pak?
Sell us those
Sell us those F-22's!
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/f22-raptors-to-japan-01909/
Seriously, why not? Jobs for us and poke a stick in NK's eye?
I smell a compromise approaching....
As an Airman, I could never
As an Airman, I could never really defend the 381 number...I can defend this lot (and maybe one more) to make sure we can sustain training and test for the ones we have.
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