How Many Bridges Can I Get for this F22?
By Wink
The Senate has voted to block expansion of one of the country’s most controversial and expensive defense programs, the F-22 fighter jet. The vote gave the White House and Pentagon a key victory over congressional supporters of the F-22, many of whom represent states and districts where jobs are tied to the production of the jet.
The President didn’t want it.
John McCain didn’t want it.
The military didn’t want it.
The Air Force recently reported that the F-22 requires more than 30 hours of maintenance for every flight hour, The Office of the Secretary of Defense put that figure at 34 hours of maintenance per single hour of flight.
Thirty to thirty-four hours of maintenance for every hour of flight? Is this worse than helicopters? (Note: helicopters require tons of maintenance)
The primary cause of its maintenance is a constant need to repair radar-absorbing metallic skin.
Another source of maintenance problems is that many components require custom hand-fitting and are not interchangeable.
Non-interchangeable parts? What a boondoggle!
Why did it take so long to kill this beast? Because your congressmen and senators insisted on keeping it, Democrats and Republicans alike.
In the olden days (50+ years ago) the military budget increased because the military kept asking for new and expensive weaponry. Congress pretty much always gave them everything they wanted.
In more recent years an interesting change has happened. The military budget is increasing because Congress has been ordering weapons that the military doesn’t even want. The F-22 is but one example.
This is the ultimate pork. It is safe to assume many in Congress knew these weapons would NEVER be used. They were just spending money to create jobs in their districts.
Disgraced ex-Senator Ted Steven’s $398 million ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ was horribly wasteful, but at least it would have helped 35 people get from the island they live on to the mainland Alaska. This is positively frugal when compared to Congress-ordered weapons programs.
Because they face reelection every two years, Congressmen are never NOT running for reelection. They repeatedly vote to maintain useless weapons programs and start new ones because it keeps money going to their districts, which keep getting them re-elected. This is my money, and your money, being poured down a rat hole.
Creating jobs is not a horrible idea. It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist (like me) to find better ways to create jobs.
Rather than building a $2 billion weapon that doesn’t work (and the military doesn’t even want), how about fixing an interstate bridge (see Minneapolis) before it falls into the river? How disruptive was the missing bridge to the Minnesota economy?
Our infrastructure, bridges, roads, highways, sewage systems, etc, are old and crumbling. The stimulus package is aimed at resolving that.
Ending crazy pork projects like the F-22 can help fund the stimulus package.
