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Senate Drops F-22 Funding, But Fat Lady Hasn't Sung
Senate Drops F-22 Funding, But Fat Lady Hasn't Sung: As w e reported Tuesday afternoon, the full Senate voted to accept the Levin-McCain amendment to cut $1.75 billion Senate defense authorizers had added to the 2010 defense policy bill to keep F-22 production running beyond the 187 Raptors approved by the Obama Administration. The vote was 58 to 40 in favor of the amendment. That, however, is not the end of the line for those who believe 187 F-22s is not sufficient to meet national security requirements. Last month, the full House approved its version of the defense policy bill, complete with funding for additional F-22s. The House and Senate now will have to work out their differences in conference. And, House defense appropriators voted to add 12 F-22s to their version of the 2010 defense spending bill. Senate defense appropriators have yet to complete their markup, but Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), who heads both the panel and full committee, has been in favor of keeping the Raptor production line going, if only to provide an opportunity to shift legislation that bans overseas sales. An interesting side note (reported by Roll Call) is that 91-year-old Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), who has been ill, returned to the Senate in time for Tuesday's vote, casting his in favor of more F-22s, obviously not swayed by Administration arguments or the Obama veto threat.
7/22/2009
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Verbatim
Preemptive Action
"Since the [Defense] Department's acceptance of the independent estimates last fall, we've been, in just about every respect, acting as if the program were in a Nunn-McCurdy breach. ... We've been taking all of the mitigating and corrective action that we would take as if there were a Nunn-McCurdy breach."
—Air Force Secretary Michael Donley, discussing with reporters the restructure of the F-35 strike fighter program announced in February 2010 and the probability that the program will soon exceed Nunn-McCurdy cost-monitoring thresholds that would necessitate, per US law, a program review and corrective steps, Washington, D.C., March 2, 2010. |
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Verbatim
Message for Grandma
"She has working for her as a citizen in the United States an Air Force Reserve that has some very talented, capable, patriotic, and willing individuals doing the business to keep this nation free. Just like her generation—the 'Greatest Generation'—was, I am very proud of the folks that we have got. If not the second greatest, then they are an extension of the greatest generation and they are ready, willing, and able to do the things that she would want them to do to make sure we keep our freedoms."
—Lt. Gen. Charles Stenner, Air Force Reserve chief, responding to a reporter's question on what the reporter should tell his 85-year-old grandmother to convey to her the importance of Air Force Reservists to the nation's security, Orlando, Fla., Feb. 19, 2010.
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