Shooting Down The Raptor

IBD Editorials ^ | July 21, 2009 | INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY Staff

[Kaslin]

Defense Spending: The TARP bailout may hit $24 trillion, but the Senate says the F-22 is too expensive to build and maintain. So why are the Japanese so desperate to buy this "unnecessary" Cold War weapon?

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By a vote of 58-40, the Senate on Tuesday voted to remove $1.75 billion set aside in a defense bill to build seven more F-22 Raptors, adding to the 187 stealth technology fighters already in the pipeline.

After some hope the production lines would be kept open, the Senate succumbed to arguments by the administration and others that the fighter was too expensive, too hard to maintain and not built for the wars America is fighting these days.

President Obama welcomed the Senate vote, saying he rejected the notion that the country has to "waste billions of taxpayers dollars" on outdated defense projects.

Well, the inspector general in charge of overseeing the Treasury Department's bank-bailout program now says the massive endeavor could end up costing taxpayers almost $24 trillion in a worst-case scenario. Yet we can't afford to build just seven more F-22s?

Keeping the F-22 production lines open would be a real stimulus saving real jobs. Lockheed Martin, the main contractor, says 25,000 people are directly employed in building the plane, and another 70,000 have indirect links, particularly in Georgia, Texas and California. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., a supporter of the program, says there are 1,000 suppliers in 44 states. That's wasteful?

[EDINVA]

Russia wins with better fighters to sell and we lose. Why is this a surprise from the fraud occupying the oval office.

[sam_paine]

Why don't they call IBD, stuff bloggs, since that is what they really are. What wrong with the Japanese throwing their money away, good for them.

What's wrong with using punctuation and syntax in a meaningful way?

[saganite]

It’s not an attrition game with the F-22. I have spoken to F-15 pilots who have taken them on in exercises. The score generally runs: Raptor kills everything flying and the F-15 never sees them coming. That’s not attrition, that’s total air superiority.

[OA5599]

You may be correct, that is pretty close to where the last one crashed.

Is that anywhere near where the F-15E crashed this month? Or the F-15D that crashed last year? Or the two F-15C's that crashed in 2007? Or the F-15K that crashed in 2006?

[hattend]

Good post, thanks!

[org.whodat]

What's wrong with using punctuation and syntax in a meaningful way?

Five more years of text messages and no one will know the meaning of your post!!

[DontTreadOnMe2009]

Has anyone calculated how many F-22s could be bought with just 1%

(or 10%) of TARP, or Healthcare ???

Hundreds !!!

Call McCain and tell ‘em

(I’m tired of doing it - he never responded. And lost.)

[myknowledge]

It actually requires 30 hours of maintenance, IIRC. The Flanker family of air superiority fighters is the most advanced Eastern fighter in operational service today. Realistically, ~750 Raptors would be needed to win air superiority in three theaters of war, along with defending the CONUS. Air Power Australia has the answers.