We loved you once, but let’s face it: you were just too high maintenance for a long term relationship to ever last.
Gates recommended capping purchases of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-22 fighter jets at 187 and canceling the company’s VH- 71 presidential helicopter, while planning to buy 30 of the company’s next generation F-35 warplane in the 2010 budget compared with 14 this year. […]
The F-22, conceived at the height of the Cold War to take on the Soviet Union, was the focus of a lobbying campaign as Lockheed and its subcontractors said halting production at the 183 already on order could jeopardize 95,000 jobs in 44 states. At $354 million in inflation-adjusted dollars including research and development costs, it is the most expensive fighter in U.S. history.
Why does Robert Gates hate America (sniff)?
Frank Gaffney was on Hardball tonight. He said he was a member of the Dick Cheney fan club and that Obama going to Turkey and using the word ‘respect’ was code for saying that we will submit to sharia law.
I thought it take longer out of power for them to go completely crazy.
That’s Ok. Soon we’ll be sending them all to our Obamabot re-education camps where their politially incorrect attitudes and disdain for our LiberalCommie Fascism will be beaten out of them as we make them confess all their sins against Big Brother (or something like that! Bwahahahahahahaha!
Is he capping it at 187 more? Or limiting it to 187 already purchased? It’s not clear.
Do we need to double our F-35 purchases? I read a yahoo finance, of all places , that with Obama’s budget we will be spending more on the military than the next 25 nations combined. That is mind-blowing. It must be very close to the US spending more than the rest of the world combined.
according to reuter’s:
looks like the long running SDI program…ie: mi complex cash cow… will continue with a change of focus. gotta think about those rogue states…you remember those guys…the one’s who’ve yet to test fire anything with a remote possibility of getting here. still, an already bloated defense budget is going up 4%±.
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Standard & Poor’s Aerospace & Defense Index rose 8.4, or 3.6 percent, to 244.12 after Gates’s announcements. It had risen 82 percent by the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2008.
The recommended cuts in weapons programs come as U.S. defense spending is set to reach $654.1 billion for the fiscal year 2009, including war costs, a 72 percent gain since 2000. President Barack Obama assigned Gates, who took office during the Bush administration, to rein in spending.
Shares Jump on Defense Plans
Lockheed shares ended up 8.9 percent at $73.28, Northrop rose 9 percent to $47.94 and Raytheon rose 8.3 percent to $41.66.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Another capitulation to terrorists, no doubt.
My town is going to get hurt pretty badly by this. People I know will probably lose their jobs because of this.
I hope we convert this spending into some comparable domestic spending around here… we’re gonna need it. But I won’t lose even a wink of sleep knowing that this useless weapons system has erased from the federal budget. This is just a good start.
Read the whole thing here. While he is cutting the Raptor, he’s substantially increasing funds for the F-35. And missed by most commentators:
‘Bout time.
Still, the U.S. is the world’s Numero Uno exporter of weapons.
sweet, huh?
since Obama wants to return the upper tax brackets to the Clinton days, I recommend he return “defense” spending to the Clinton days as well. he was one of the few that managed to get it sort of under control.
F-35 IS STILL ON? YES! YES! YES!