Free Republic

TOBYHANNA — Wednesday was the second trip for U.S. Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski, D-10, to the Tobyhanna Army Depot in four months to announce new government funds. He's expecting to be back soon. "I wouldn't doubt we'd be up here in the near future announcing more funding," he said. Kanjorski on Wednesday announced $2.4 million in federal stimulus money going to infrastructure improvements around the depot. Specifically, the money will be used to improve the quality of life at the depot's barracks for military personnel stationed there for training. About 2,000 troops pass through Tobyhanna in a year in addition...

(snip) Mr. Obama drew some of his most enthusiastic applause when he hammered away at wasteful military spending, declaring, “It’s simple enough. Cut the waste. Save taxpayer dollars. Support the troops.” And he also took pains to praise a hometown politician and former rival — Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who was traveling overseas and did not attend the event on Monday. Mr. Obama called him “a great veteran, a great Arizonan and a great American who has shown the courage to stand and fight this waste.” (snip)

It’s been more than half a century since American soldiers were killed by hostile aircraft. Let's keep it that way.The United States relies on the Air Force, and the Air Force has never been the decisive factor in the history of war. —Saddam Hussein, before Desert Storm High-end conventional war is characterized by the clash of industrial forces. It’s armored, mechanized and increasingly air-power centric. Few are equipped by training or temperament to understand the phenomenon, especially as it concerns air warfare, a relatively recent aspect of the human experience. (In this regard, Saddam Hussein had plenty of company.) But...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. House leaders have dropped plans to spend $550 million in the Air Force budget on passenger jets used by lawmakers and senior government officials, officials said on Monday. The House of Representatives reversed the move to upgrade the executive jet fleet after public criticism, opposition from other lawmakers and the Defense Department had said it did not need more planes that it had requested. "If the Department of Defense does not want these aircraft, they will be eliminated from the bill," Representative John Murtha, chairman of a House panel on defense appropriations, said in a statement....

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Facing controversy over a plan to use taxpayer money to purchase new aircraft for the U.S. government officials, the House of Representatives said late Monday that it would cut back its spending plans by more than $100 million.

House Democratic leaders said Monday that they will not force the Pentagon to buy four new passenger jets used to ferry senior government officials. Democrats have been criticized for adding $330 million to the Air Force's 2010 budget to buy the jets even though the Pentagon didn't request the money. Two of the planes would be the C-37 — the military equivalent to the fancy Gulfstream 550 — and cost taxpayers $130 million at a time when lawmakers have made villains of bailed-out auto executives who rely on corporate jets to travel.

WASHINGTON -- House leaders are dropping plans to spend $330 million on Air Force passenger planes for use by senior government officials that were not requested by the Pentagon. "If the Department of Defense does not want these aircraft, they will be eliminated from the bill," said Rep. John Murtha (D., Pa.), the chairman of the House panel that sought the aircraft order. Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said she supports Mr. Murtha's decision. A Defense Department spokesman said last week the House's plan to buy eight aircraft for use by traveling was encountering opposition in the Senate.

A year ago, USAF had a fully funded modernization program. That program has unraveled. The Air Force is in the throes of what could prove to be one of the greatest upheavals in its turbulent 62-year history. The words “danger” and “difficulty” have become only too appropriate in describing the situation of USAF’s critical combat formations. Today is a time when aged fighters fall out of the sky and no replacement bomber is in sight. The nation bets its basic security on a force that is older—by far—than at any time since World War II. Some see the current turmoil...

House Pencils in Millions for Jets the Air Force Did Not RequestHouse lawmakers approved millions for military jets the Air Force did not request. But an aide says the decision was made to speed up the replacement of an aging fleet. FOXNews.com Wednesday, August 05, 2009 Congress is supposed to be taking a knife to the federal budget. But when it comes to new military equipment, they've traded their knife for a spoon -- tossing in scoops of cash that the Pentagon hasn't even requested. The latest example comes with the House approving more than $500 million for eight passenger...

WASHINGTON — The House on Thursday approved President Obama’s plan to kill the F-22 fighter jet. But Democratic leaders bucked White House veto threats on other programs, and they heatedly rejected a Republican effort to strip more than 550 earmarked expenditures from the $636 billion military bill. Mr. Obama and other political leaders had hailed last week’s vote in the Senate to cancel the F-22 as a sign of their progress in changing military spending practices. But in sometimes tense exchanges on the House floor on Thursday, two Republicans, Representatives Jeff Flake of Arizona and John Campbell of California, sought...

WASHINGTON, July 30 (AP) - (Kyodo)—The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed a $636.3 billion defense spending bill that scuttled the disputed F-22 fighter jet program but retained funding for other projects the White House opposes. The passage followed the White House's renewed threat for President Barack Obama to veto a bill for fiscal 2010, starting Oct. 1, if it includes money to continue producing the F-22.

The House on Thursday bucked President Barack Obama’s veto threats and overwhelmingly approved a $636 billion Pentagon spending bill for fiscal 2010. The bill, passed on a 400-30 vote, does meet Obama’s demand to cap the F-22 fighter jet program, something he personally lobbied for. But the measure still contains funding on two programs that have drawn veto threats from the administration. In particular, the White House this week threatened to veto the bill over $560 million for an alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as well as $485 million for new helicopters to fly the president on...

WASHINGTON, July 30 (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday killed new funding for the disputed F-22 fighter jet program as part of a $636.3 billion military spending bill that was expected to clear the chamber. House action on a vote of 269-165 to bury additional production of Lockheed Martin Corp's (LMT.N) F-22 solidified an important victory for the Obama administration on procurement reform and nullified a veto threat over the matter.

During the 2008 presidential race, America's Independent Party leaders warned against the notion that somehow John McCain represented any sort of real alternative to Barack Obama. The proof of that assertion continues to mount. Even on matters that affect the very physical survival of our nation, the Senator from Arizona sets no bounds on compromise.

The most remarkable thing happened in Washington this past Tuesday. Congress scrapped the F-22 stealth fighter jet, killing off a 30-year-old Pentagon hardware program that employs 25,000 people in 46 states. It was a dogfight almost to the end over $1.75 billion and the need to remake military readiness. Threats and promises, blunt talk and grand gestures -- all were deployed to support an appeal to common sense and for urgent change, according to principals involved. The White House coordinated the ultimately successful vote-wrangling, and its specific tactics may show up again in another epic battle now unfolding: getting Congress...

A company that provides uniformed guards for Los Alamos National Laboratory, SOC Los Alamos, plans to cut up to 18 jobs. The action is being taken because of a reduction in funding

Like the F-22? Don’t like the F-22? Think we need more F-22s? Think 187 F-22s is about the right number? Believe we need the capability the F-22 brings to the fight, or think we don’t. The U.S. Senate’s vote Tuesday of 58 -- 40 to stop F-22 production at 187 aircraft is the next to the last nail in coffin of the Air Force’s premier fighter program. A House-Senate conference still has to agree on the final result, but it seems like a long shot that the program will be continued. Regardless, of where you come down in the debate,...

The Senate on Thursday voted to scuttle money for a second engine powering the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, handing President Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates a second victory on Pentagon priorities. In a voice vote, the Senate struck $438.9 million in funding from the 2010 defense authorization bill for the second engine, which is produced by General Electric and Rolls-Royce. Senators specifically approved an amendment sponsored by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) that bars spending on an alternative engine until the Defense secretary certifies that such a program would reduce the fighter program’s costs, improve the planes’ readiness and...

House appropriators are handing Defense Secretary Robert Gates a dilemma: Buy aerial refueling tankers from two companies or hold a competition to select only one. Sounds like an easy choice for a competitive bid. But a House Appropriations Committee bill funding defense in fiscal year 2010 orders Gates — who says it’s unnecessary to have two tankers built by two companies — to run the terms of the competition by Congress, a task intended to boost oversight but one that adds the potential for more politicking. The competition is sure to provoke massive lobbying and posturing by supporters of Boeing...

In a speech to the Economic Club of Chicago this month, Department of Defense Secretary Robert Gates laid out the case for discontinuing the F-22 Raptor: "The F-22, to be blunt, does not make much sense anyplace else in the spectrum of conflict." In English that means that plane has not been used in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Gates wants to slay the beast, but he understands you have to feed the beast before you can kill it. So the administration supports ending the F-22's long $65 billion flight -- after seven new planes budgeted for 2010 bring the...