Congress Just Can't Say Goodbye to the F-22

Many in the weapons acquisition reform community--including POGO--have zeroed in on the F-22 as a flash point for determining whether Defense Secretary Gates's reforms, and particularly his budget cuts, will stick. For those subscribing to that fight, Inside Defense has bad news: the House Armed Services Committee voted today to include $369 million for the advance procurement of 12 F-22A.

-- Mandy Smithberger

UPDATE: August Cole at the Wall Street Journal points out that the vote to include more F-22s was extremely close: 31 to 30. So maybe Congress is edging towards real reform that would prioritize national security objectives over parochial interests. But for now, the F-22 is still closer to their heart.

Comments

[Dfens]

I guess when the POGO favored and less capable, single engine F-35 comes rolling in at $120 million each vs. the exhorbitent $145 million per copy of the twin engine F-22 we will all be so extremely thankful to have POGO watching out for the best interests of the military contractors. Of course, at that point, assuming POGO has its way, we won't have an option of which airplane to buy. After spending $68 billion on its development, we'll just have to be happy with the 170 F-22s we have. And when the next pie-in-the-sky airplane program comes along, we can all count on POGO to stand up for the retirement of the F-35 production line in favor of yet another paper airplane, because POGO can never be too good a servant to their government contractor masters.