Photo Courtesy of U.S. Department of Redundancy Department
Posted on 08/05/2013 8:04:16 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
The U.S. military on Thursday downplayed concerns it could cancel the F-35 fighter and a new stealth bomber, after leaked documents from a budget review suggested the programs might be eliminated as one way to deal with deep budget cuts.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Wednesday that finding $500 billion in budget cuts required by law over the next decade, on top of $487 billion in cuts already being implemented, required tough trade-offs between the size of the military and high-end weapons programs.
Pentagon briefing slides shown to various groups mapped out those tradeoffs in stark terms, indicating that a decision to maintain a larger military could result in the cancellation of the $392 billion Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 program and a new stealthy, long-range bomber, according to several people who saw the slides.
Defense officials later stressed there were no plans to kill either program, noting that dismantling the F-35 program in particular would have far-reaching consequences for the U.S. military services and 10 foreign countries involved in the program, which is already in production.
"We have gone to great lengths to stress that this review identified, through a rigorous process of strategic modeling, possible decisions we might face, under scenarios we may or may not face in the future," Pentagon Spokesman George Little told Reuters in an email when asked about the slides.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
I guess cleaning up Mexico’s poverty problem has become America’s number one priority.
Number two priority, after muslim outretch...
Stop importing everything from China!
For crying out loud.
Bring back American industry.
That will keep US money stateside, and employ people also.
Heck, we’ll even have growth once again.
Photo Courtesy of U.S. Department of Redundancy Department
I’ve said for years now that the price of this project was getting out of reach. It’s now hit the breaking point where partners are going to drop out, leaving us saddled with more of the bill.
Kill it now, before we taxpayers lose more money on the deal.
I disagree.
We need lots of jets.
But we also need the rest of our industry.
Bring back US industry.
We have lots of jets.
For the amount of money we’ve tossed down this hole, we could have had the F-22. We could upgrade F-15’s and F-16’s.
But no, we decided we wanted to go down the path already well-worn by the F-111 project...
Well bring back US industry.
Then we could keep them both.
The reason we’re even mentioning this budget mess, is because we are exporting American industry, and exporting American jobs.
Bring them back.
Now.
How we cancel ObamaPhones and some other crap?
You say that fifty times a day here, but you never say how.
Seriously, friend, you've become a broken record about this.
I’ve mentioned what we need to do.
I do so rarely though. First we need to recognize we need to change our behavior. And there are a number of things we can do in response, which we should do in response.
Making China strong and rich, and huge (remember China’s population is 5 times LARGER than America’s)
Is not a solution.
We need to be strong ourselves.
China can be strong. But so much America be.
That is the part we are missing.
We cannot simply send everything to China.
Wake up everyone.
Bring our factories home.
We need to balance our trade.
Now.
Friend, I really appreciate your persistence and passion on this subject, but you still haven't identified a solution that will get us where you want us to be.
Simply demanding that American businesses relocate their operations to the U.S. isn't going to accomplish it, if you don't first identify the factors which make China a more attractive place to do business, then seek solutions to how we can go about making America even more attractive.
Capital flows to where it will bring the greatest return. That's simply the law of the jungle, and no amount of pestering and demands are going to change it. Show foreign and domestic businesses how their capital can produce more bang for the buck here, and jobs will return to these shores without any persuasion.
F-15E stealth variant would be a more capable aircraft anyway.
Well that is where things start to get complicated.
Right now, the world is set-up to rob the United States of its wealth and its factories.
The only people currently set to turn a profit on that, are a small sub-set of people who sold us out.
That is increasingly how I see it. We must push back, and fight back with everything.
We need to stop giving away American industry, and fight to bring it back to America.
Just saying.
If it takes changing the laws regarding foreign operations, then we should change the laws.
I’ll let others worry about that portion, because I am virtually oblivious to international law.
But we need to change.
We need to set up a system which favors American industry.
Now.
Agreed, but it sounds like you haven't identified the precise causes of the problem, and therefore have no way to formulate a workable solution.
That's no different than empty-headed liberals demanding, "World Peace, Now!!"
Ask them how they suggest we go about achieving that, and they just say, "Make Love, Not War!!", or, "The UN should make a law or something...", or some other equally nonsensical reply. Perhaps they think Lord Obama should just deem it so. Makes about as much sense.
Again, I truly appreciate your passion about this, but you really ought to bone up on what's caused American capital to move offshore, and investigate possible solutions to handling that cause, if you want to get people engaged.
You I believe misunderstand.
I am an early changer. I used to be enthusiastically for “free trade” - until I realized we are being terribly played by the entire world.
America itself is at risk.
Our nation needs to look out for itself first.
Enough talk. We need action.
Change the laws governing international trade.
Bring back US industry.
Now.
Your Post reminded me of a time that I stopped to get some Gas. The Car stopped in front of me at the Pump had a “War is not the Answer” sticker on the bumper.
When the “middle aged” Woman who owned the Car was about to leave, I caught her eye and asked “What is the Answer?”. I got the nastiest glare and she tore out of there like an Obama Voter being asked for an I.D.
I agree. But then I still have a dedicated GPS. I have a dumb tv hooked up to my dedicated computer.
For my whole life, I have hated “multi role, multi function anything” I prefer a bunch of really good dedicated devices.
The F35 is supposed to be a carrier fighter, an air superiority fighter, a ground attack plane, a stealth bomber, an anti sub plane, a vertical take off plane, a short landing strip plane (stol), etc. etc.
It is way over budget and has been assigned so many roles, it does nothing well.
I would not mind seeing it killed and the f22 revived along with a dedicated carrier plane. I don’t see any reason for the stol version or the vertical take off version. This was stuck in there for the British aircraft carriers.
I recommend you read “Elements of Power” at blogspot.
A professional aerospace guy, he discusses current reality.
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