Community | July 21, 2009 | 31 comments

Senate Votes to Strip $1.75 Billion for F-22s From Defense Bill

source: http://www.nytimes.com/?emc=na

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Nettle
The Senate voted 58-40 to delete financing for seven more F-22 warplanes from a defense spending bill, handing President Obama a significant victory in his efforts to reshape the military's priorities. Mr. Obama repeatedly threatened to veto the $679.8 billion spending bill if it included any money for the planes, which had become a flashpoint in a larger battle over the administration's push to shift more of the Pentagon's resources from conventional warfare to fighting insurgencies.

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Note, I just got this story in my email, it's so fresh it doesn't even have an article. I shall post it once I find it.
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31 comments // Senate Votes to Strip $1.75 Billion for F-22s From Defense Bill

  • 1Eco_Media
  • Saladin
    • 0
      Saladin  

    • To counter unphiltered's post and put this in perspective.

      The F-22 is a waste. The plane has never been flown in combat, but recent reports estimate it costs $44,000 per hour to fly, and $351 million per plane to build.1

      To put it in context - building one of these planes costs as much as rebuilding and renewing 60 schools.2 Flying the plane for one hour (to fight a Cold War enemy that no longer exists) costs as much as hiring a new teacher for a year.3

      1 - washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/09/AR2009070903020.html
      2 - http://truesecurity.usaction.org/f22facts
      3 - bls.gov/oco/ocos069.htm

    • 2 years ago
  • unphiltered
    • 0
      unphiltered  
    • Saladin:

      Yes, if they were actually going to spend that money on building schools. But they are not. Read the full context of the articles about this. They are cutting 1.7 billion for a handful of planes and upping the production of the next model by almost 100 planes. That extra 70-80 planes will exceed that 1.7 billion many times over.

      No money is being saved, more money is being spent. Just on a different plane.

      I'm not arguing the efficiency of this plane or the next, just that no money is saved and this is a political move.

      And Saladin- where the hell did schools come in? Cuz they nor teachers will or ever would see any of this money. Defense dollars will just be redirected to defense, as it did.

      Don't believe the hype, just look at the political facts- as in expect politicians to do certain things, not tout numbers.

    • 2 years ago
  • unphiltered
    • 0
      unphiltered  

    • Again, how is this a victory? Not spending 1.7 billion to basically prove a point and likely to spend 10's billions more instead on a different plane.

      No money is saved, he's just flexing political prowess.

    • 2 years ago
  • JohnA
  • Saladin
    • 0
      Saladin  
    • JohnA:

      Yes, because cutting back 2 billion out a 2 trillion dollar budget is destroying the military.

      An intellectually bankrupt comment from John_A, so what else is new?

    • 2 years ago
  • brit50
  • Saladin
    • 0
      Saladin  

    • Look at how hard it was just to even get a basic cutback in Pentagon spending.

      It is literally impossible to get conservatives to budge on this issue. A single penny away from defense spending apparently is going to kill us all.

      Never mind that we spend more money on our military than the entire world combined, it's never enough and can never be cut.

    • 2 years ago
  • 1realone
    • 0
      1realone  

    • Robin the hood, we're just going to build more useful weapons with the money saved, so we'll be even safer. We really have no need to keep producing fighters this expensive, we can mess shit up with unmanned drones, bombers and other weapons.

    • 2 years ago
  • RobinTheHood
    • 0
      RobinTheHood  

    • So.... how many BILLIONS go to a dying car manufacturer? We can't spare less than $2 BILLION on a tool that KEEPS U.S. safe!? Nice!!!! (not) first place our Commander in Chief wants to NOT throw money is in defense? Remember 9/11!!!!!

      p.s. I have family working in aerospace... no bailout for us? In fact, it looks like quite the opposite. We need military technology more than we need Chevy Camaros, Mr. Obama.

    • 2 years ago
  • Valentin0o
  • Saladin
    • 0
      Saladin  
    • RobinTheHood:

      You're an idiot.

      He cuts 1.75 billion and now we're all going to burn down in flames?

      It's a couple of fucking jets, grow up. The greatest military in the world didn't stop the worst attack in our nation's history.

      We have plenty of warplanes, the Pentagon's budget is in the TRILLIONS.

      We can skim off just a tiny bit and still be safe.

      In fact, we could ELIMINATE the military budget and still technically be safe. It's called tens of thousands of nuclear weapons.

    • 2 years ago
  • brit50
  • Wetdog
    • 0
      Wetdog  
    • RobinTheHood:

      ------"Wow Saladin, that kind of mentality is a very unsafe one to have."--------

      He's sure got you there Saladin. Everyone knows that we need $350+++ jet fighters to keep terrorists from getting on commercial airliners with bombs hidden in their shoe.

    • 2 years ago
  • TentativeChaos
    • 0
      TentativeChaos  

    • I'm very glad about this. Before you even consider the morals of having a jet such as this, lets just think about the fact that the camouflage can't hold up to rain. That's right it's a jet that can't fly if it starts to rain, and that's only the beginning of why this plane sucks.

    • 2 years ago
  • RobinTheHood
  • TentativeChaos
  • SebastianF
  • VoyagerFilms
  • TabulaRasa
  • masterzip
  • Wetdog
    • 0
      Wetdog  

    • The problem with guerilla warfare is that you can't shoot what you can't see----no matter how technical your equipment is.

    • 2 years ago
  • brit50
    • 0
      brit50  
    • Wetdog:

      I agree. The big problem when we invaded Iraq was that most of the Republican Guard fled and fought in the cities. We where prepared for open field battle with the large amount of war choppers, etc.

    • 2 years ago
  • Nettle
  • brit50
  • Wetdog
    • 0
      Wetdog  
    • Nettle:

      -------"Come on Nettle its from the NY Times. Half of everything in that newspaper is liberal propoganda."------

      Which means the other half of everything in that newspaper is conservative propaganda.

      No source is reliable unless it is 100% conservative propaganda I suppose.

    • 2 years ago
  • Nettle
    • 0
      Nettle  
    • Nettle:

      Well let's think about his comment.

      So what if NYTimes is half liberal? What kind of a difference does it make on the cut and dry news being reported? If a conservative paper had their attention brought to this story, would they ignore it? How would it be different?

    • 2 years ago
  • guidedtotarget
    • 0
      guidedtotarget  

    • Probably for the best. We have 177 of the F-22s; this was for a few more and to keep the production line open. Obama and Gates have said the money will now go to producing more F-35 fighters.

    • 2 years ago
  • afitzgerald
  • current89
    • 0
      current89  

    • Very good news, billions would have been wasted on fighters that the Air Force and D.O.D. have deemed as wasteful and useless.

    • 2 years ago
  • TabulaRasa
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