It took a Twitter town hall to learn how the President really thinks about defense. Not only does Obama want to gut defense as part of his debt deal (a proposal that simply won’t work)—on top of that, he wants to use the Pentagon budget as his personal ATM to fund more stimulus spending. According to Obama, the Pentagon budget is “so big that you can make relatively modest changes to defense that end up giving you a lot of headroom to fund things like basic research or student loans or things like that.”
What the President left out is the impact his “modest changes” are having on our men and women in the Armed Forces. The poster child for stupid defense budgeting is the F–35: how the Administration has stretched out, exaggerated the costs of, and played politics with funding for the military’s next-generation fighter aircraft. Today’s air forces are the oldest in the history of U.S. air forces. Replacing old airframes and ensuring the U.S. maintains its superiority over potential adversaries is a national security priority.
Yet Obama has done little to show he takes the challenge of modernizing the air fleets seriously. Particularly troubling is his penchant to let the Pentagon slow-roll the fielding of the F–35B (the vertical takeoff and landing version of the fighter for the Marine Corps). The answer may be, as one defense analyst notes, “Put the Obama Administration on Probation, Not The F–35B.”
Today, the Marines are stuck with aging airframes that have limited capabilities and are expensive to operate—a double problem. In contrast, the “B is a winner on both counts. The impact on the fleet is significant. The Marines go from three to one aircraft; and it gets a new aircraft with significant reductions in cost of maintenance.”
The fate of the F–35 is a case study in the President’s penny-wise, pound-foolish approach to defense spending.
I'm all for cutting the budget in ALL areas including defense. But, not at the cost of our air superiority. And certainly not so we can spend more on "research and student loans." For goodness sake, we have military personnel in over 100 countries. Bring those people home. We should not and cannot afford to be the world policeman.
“Hold the Cross high as I may see it through the flames!”
JOAN Of ARC 1412AD-1431AD
“Hold the American Flag up high above the defecation and urination unloaded by Barack Hussein Obama!” Dr Rc BearClayborn 2011AD
Hold the American Flag up high so that everyone can see that only 485 hazardous days remain until Tuesday, November 6, 2012 and America will Recovery from this horrific Obama train wreck. http://www.glasslipstalking.info http://www.examiner.com/republican-in-oakland
Obama wants trillions and trillions of dollars he won't hold himself accountable for, to save us from America's freedom…???
Yes, stop all other government spending except defense. Build more bombers, tanks and missiles. Double/triple down on missile defense. Increase military presence in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. Prepare to invade China to recover all those lost jobs and treasury notes. Issue uniforms to our elected representatives and think-tank wonks. Close all schools and hospitals in this country and plug children and the sick into the Heritage website. Follow the glorious path of the USSR!
Ray you are funny I am sure; the point is to work with smart investments and intelligent leadership decisions; the defense budget can be cut for sure with a roll back of the Afghanistan mission and retiring older systems and selling them a la the Aussies, and putting into deployment new systems which cost LESS to operate and give you more capability; so your point is what exactly go down the path of the current Obama Administration leadership by aspiration rather than adult decisions; more like a third world country than a global power
President Obama rules man…. He is the best person that we have to run this country at the moment. He is the people's President. He cares about the common person. When people look through the lens of racism. It's hard to see what the common persons going through. It's the people of this country that makes it possible for us to remain the super power of the world. Hopefully the 99% of the republican party will wake up and see whats going on before it to late. Do the right thing Republicans…. support your president regardless of party affiliation. Its us against the world.