The other day, Jon Soltz asked an important question: "Will Congress Put Useless Jets Above America?"
His diary chronicled the absurdity of Congress forcing the government to buy obsolete Cold War-era planes the military doesn't even want-- that Sec. Gates has singled out as a waste of money, actually-- at enormous cost, to be paid for by taking money from cleaning up nuclear waste. Why would Congress do such a thing? Because the parts for the F-22 are spread across 43 states, and you can't call it pork if it blows shit up, you DFHs.
In an article that compares congressional military spending to alcohol addiction, Lorelei Kelly makes the important point that the F-22 issue is not a "guns vs butter" issue, in the sense that the money for the F-22 is not being taken from domestic programs, but from other military programs, in service of this weaponized pork. In other words, the Military-Industrial Complex has spun out of control of the Military and even the Industry; Lockheed-Martin had stopped lobbying for the F-22. The Congress-- Democrats and Republicans-- can't give up their fix of military spending.
Who can save us from the wastefulness of the military industrial complex?
President Obama can, that's who.
According to the AP story, Obama has threatened to veto any legislation that contained the stupid planes. Credit should also be given to Barney Frank for attempting to get the planes out of the budget, as well as providing some typically biting commentary:
I am of course struck that so many of my colleagues who are so worried about the deficit apparently think the Pentagon is funded with Monopoly money that somehow doesn’t count.
I think money for guns is called "Patriot Dollars" and money for health care is known generally as "Taxpayers' Hard Earned Cash".
The place where this story goes from painful Congressional parochialism to flat out WTF stupid is the fact that most of the jobs that would be eliminated by the end of the F-22 production would be saved by the ramped up production of the F-35, according to Think Progress and War Is Boring, who write that
Shutting down the Raptor line would see thousands of workers snapped up for active production lines churning out F-16s, F-35s, C-130s and modernized C-5s for Lockheed, not to mention the prospect that industry rivals Boeing and Northrop might lure Lockheed workers for their own active production lines for the F-15, F/A-18 and others.
So as far as I can tell, the only argument for maintaining production of the F-22 is laziness-- these lawmakers want to keep jobs in their states, know about this program, and are too lazy to go along with Obama's "line-by-line" budget evaluation and would rather just sign a piece of paper and keep the gravy train a-rolling.
Finally, in a reminder that military spending could take more 21st century shapes, the Pentagon approved creation of a cyber command to defend the military's networks. This is military spending that even a DFH like me can get behind. It also makes me wonder-- why did it take until 2009 for the US to create dedicated cyber defense? Oh, right, the GOPasaurs were in charge, making obsolete fighter jets.