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It's the most expensive fighter jet ever built. Yet the F-22 Raptor has never seen a day of combat, and its future is clouded by a government safety investigation that has grounded the jet for months. The fleet of 158 F-22s, including those in Alaska, has been sidelined since May 3 after more than a dozen incidents in which oxygen was cut off to pilots, making them woozy. The malfunction is suspected of contributing to at least one fatal accident, in Alaska. At an estimated cost of $412 million each, the F-22s amount to about $65 billion sitting on the...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D–NV) introduced legislation to raise the debt ceiling this week. In evaluating his plans for future government spending, it becomes clear that budgeting for prudent defense is considered just another line item. While Americans intuitively know that national security is unlike any other category of federal spending, it is often treated with inherent bias through insider budgeting methods. Congress tends to selectively ignore what are called “baselines” used for comparing different spending proposals. This is convenient if a Member of Congress wants to generate more phantom cuts to appease a core audience—or, worse, to not...

"A lot of the spending cuts that we're making should be around areas like defense spending as opposed to food stamps," President Obama told in an interview with NPR.

Representative Paul Ryan (Wisc.-1) and the House GOP released their ten-year budget entitled "The Path to Prosperity" [pdf] to much fanfare on Capitol Hill yesterday, laying out an alternative to President Obama's proposal. Compared to baseline numbers, the Path to Prosperity spends $5.8 trillion less, and $6.2 trillion less than the President's budget over the next ten years. The largest spending cuts come from the discretionary budget, both defense ($830 billion) and non-defense ($1.6 trillion). Rep. Ryan's defense budget accepts the proposals laid out by defense Secretary Robert Gates and endorsed by President Obama, but cuts spending in every other...

US naval aviation back on the rise © Northrop Grumman How Northrop Grumman sees the carrier deck of 2020 Retired Vice Adm Robert Dunn remembers being called to the Secretary of the Navy's office. It was 1989 and the US Navy was still at the peak of its Cold War, 600-ship glory. Defence spending, however, was already in decline and the navy's top civilian, Henry Garrett, had a tough decision to make. As deputy chief of naval operations for aviation, Dunn's portfolio included two projects for a carrier-based, long-range strike aircraft - a re-engined Grumman A-6E Intruder called the A-6F...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-02-14-budgetinside14_ST_N.htm?csp=34news For five years running, two presidents have tried to eliminate funding for a backup engine on a fighter jet, a program Defense Secretary Robert Gates calls unnecessary. Congress, however, has rebuffed the White House and continues to fund the $465-million-a-year alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, amid intense lobbying by General Electric, the corporate giant working with Rolls-Royce to develop that engine. General Electric's aggressive outreach ranges from running ads on the subway cars that congressional staffers take to work to deploying dozens of well-connected lobbyists to Capitol Hill and the Pentagon.... ...Among the new lawmakers backing...

Will this be the year that Congress takes after the defense budget, seeing it not as holy writ laid down by an unchallengeable priesthood but rather as a political document hammered out by competing bureaucracies, each with long-standing vested interests? It's a bubbling brew out there, the Tea Party Republicans keen to slash any and all federal programs, joined in a potential alliance of convenience with liberal Democrats seeking to kill big-ticket weapons slammed as pork-barrel waste or Cold War antiques. The Obama administration's proposed defense budget for fiscal year 2012, rolled out Monday afternoon by Secretary of Defense Robert...

Supreme Court justices seemed in general agreement Tuesday that the best way to resolve a long-running, billion-dollar dispute between the government and two big defense contractors is to say, in Justice Antonin Scalia's words, "Go away."... That was the apparent sentiment of the court toward a contract dispute over the A-12 Avenger attack plane, canceled by the Pentagon in 1991 when Richard Cheney was defense secretary...

Aerojet, a GenCorp company, announced today that it shipped the last F-22 Raptor forward boom to The Boeing Company in Seattle, Wash. This completed the 10th lot of a procurement that spanned 17 years in support of the Boeing/Lockheed Martin/U.S. Air Force team. Aerojet has been under contract to The Boeing Company on the F-22 Raptor air dominance fighter program since 1993 and has delivered 394 booms. The company was honored by Boeing as its Supplier of the Year in 2005 and 2007, and its gold and silver supplier for 2009 and 2010. "Our success is a testament to the...

On August 31 President Obama announced the end of “combat operations” in Iraq, while proclaiming “the military efforts the nation has made since 9/11 had shortchanged investments in our own people and contributed to record deficits.” It’s no secret that progressives consider Defense as a waste of money that would be better served funding more entitlement programs. As Obama promised them “What I won’t do is cut back on investments like education.” As a Commander and Chief Obama seems determined to throw the military under the bus and squander its budget. Latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office estimate that...

Alongside another controversial provision in the 2011 defense authorization bill pending in Congress is language that illustrates the continuing challenge of taxpayer support for elective abortions. Included in the version of the bill that emerged from the Senate Armed Services Committee is an amendment sponsored by Sen. Roland Burris (D–IL) that would allow the use of military facilities around the world for “pre-paid” abortions.The policy at stake has a long history, but for most of the past four decades, decisions by various Administrations and laws adopted by Congress have limited public funding for abortions in military hospitals as well as...

Virginia officials reacted with bipartisan dismay on Monday to Defense Department budget shifts that will cost the state thousands of jobs in coming years and will dramatically impact the economies of the Norfolk area and Northern Virginia. Most of the immediate reaction revolved around Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates's proposal to close the U.S. Joint Forces Command. It is a major employer in Hampton Roads, including Norfolk and Virginia Beach, whose elimination could translate into the loss of 6,100 military, civilian and contractor jobs in the region. But a proposal to slash the Pentagon's budget for military contractors over the...

WASHINGTON -- Officials briefed on the decision say Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to eliminate a major military command in Norfolk, Va., and try to cut the Pentagon's use of outside contractors by 10 percent next year. The plan was to be announced at a Pentagon press conference on Monday. It is part of a broader effort to trim $100 billion from the military's mammoth budget in the next five years, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan begin to wind down and Congress turns its attention more to domestic priorities.

President Barack Obama is signing legislation to fund his troop surge in Afghanistan. Before Congress passed it on Tuesday, the bill was stripped of money for domestic stimulus programs. Obama was signing it in a low-ley Oval Office session Thursday.

NEWPORT NEWS — — Foreign ownership of Northrop Grumman Corp.'s nuclear shipbuilding business "would present significant challenges" for the U.S. Navy, a spokesman said Monday. Northrop, whose Newport News shipyard is the sole manufacturer and refueler of the Navy's nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and one of two to build nuclear-powered Navy submarines, said last week it is seeking strategic alternatives for its shipbuilding enterprise, which includes selling or spinning off the unit.

(CNSNews.com) – Democrats in the both the House and Senate are trying to amend the 2011 war funding bill to allow gays, lesbians, and bisexuals to serve in the military, a move opposed by the heads of all four branches of the armed services. The amendments are being sold as a compromise between homosexual activists, their congressional allies, and defenders of the military who support the current ban on homosexual service.  The proposal would not allow gays, lesbians, and bisexuals to serve immediately but would delay their entry until the Defense Department completes its policy review in December. Originally, that review...

America has a long tradition of supporting those on the side of democracy By, Elizabeth Emken Republican Candidate for Congress, California’s 11th District Since 1948, the State of Israel has stood tall as a bulwark for democracy in the Middle East and has been one of America’s staunchest allies. No matter which party occupied the White House, United States foreign policy reflected the importance of our strong relationship with Israel and our understanding that a secure Israel is vital to our own national security interests. The U. S. has always stood strong in support of Israel in its sovereign right...

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has signaled that the long-awaited and seriously over-budget Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) may be the next high-profile project scrapped — the latest in a series of moves meant to streamline the Pentagon’s budget and refocus the military on future challenges. The EFV, an amphibious armored troop transport, was designed to replace the tired AAV-7A1, a 1970s-era vehicle that has had its service life extended several times as the Marine Corps has sought a replacement. Both vehicles occupy a specific niche that few vehicles in the world can (or try) to match. They are purpose-designed to transport...

An average sergeant in the Army with four years of service and one dependent would receive $52,589 in annual compensation, according to the paper. This figure includes basic pay, housing and subsistence allowances, as well as tax benefits. Meanwhile, a U.S. Postal letter carrier, with no supervisory or hazardous duty, makes approximately $80,000 a year when all benefits are factored in.