No joke. The procurement and development cycle for fighter aircraft is just longer than it would seem. It was over to 25 years from the time the F22 was first on the drawing board until it was operational. That's just how long these things take.
Jimmi Carter killed the B-1A and decimated the military spending and R&D. Imagine what he could have done with 4 more years.
Instead, we got Ronald Reagan(!) who revived the B-1 and other programs, built the F-16 and F/A-18 in quantity and rebuilt our military that Carter and crew tore down.
Programs like the F-22 or the F-35 or anything else, such as SDI, don't do well, and rarely follow schedules with socialists and communists in charge. Those ideologies do NOT want us to be a strong nation and do all they can to make us weak.
New tech has teething problems, especially the most cutting edge, but those naturally occurring problems are then used against the program by those who want to kill it, be they in government or the one stream media.
Every aircraft in our inventory has been first hated and threatened with death by those who later praise them and brag about their capabilities.
But, make no mistake, they would have preferred each die on the drawing board or as prototypes and did all they could to make that happen.
The F-35's development is testament to their methods. Who is really hurt? You and I.
Really? How long did it take to develop and deploy an atomic bomb from a cold start?
With slide rules, chalk, and all manual machine tools?
How long should it take now with high performance computers, CAD/CAM, CNC machine tools and 3-d printers?