Say Anything Blog

Would life have been very different under a McCain administration?

Sen. John McCain, in an unusual alliance with the Obama administration, moved Monday to eliminate $1.75 billion recently inserted into the proposed 2010 defense budget for more fighter jets from Lockheed Martin.

The administration has threatened to veto any defense spending bill that includes money for more F-22s. Mr. McCain, Arizona Republican, supports that position and warned that he may not have enough support to get his amendment passed.

Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, joined Mr. McCain in filing the amendment to cut the extra money for seven more F-22s. The Senate Armed Services Committee last month narrowly approved the additional funding requested by Sen. Saxby Chambliss, Georgia Republican.

Mr. Levin, the committee’s chairman, and Mr. McCain voted against the additional funds. Elsewhere, the House last month voted to include a $369 million down payment for 12 additional fighters to its version of the defense bill.

Mr. Levin said he would seek to hold a full Senate vote on the F-22 amendment by noon Tuesday toward the goal of completing the defense spending bill this week.

The White House reiterated its threat to veto legislation that includes money to continue production of the radar-evading jets beyond the current request of 187 planes.

”We do not need these planes,” President Obama wrote in a letter to Mr. McCain and Mr. Levin on Monday. “To continue to procure additional F-22s would be to waste valuable resources that should be more usefully employed to provide our troops with weapons that they actually do need.”

Mr. McCain, who last year lost his bid for the White House to Mr. Obama, said on the Senate floor Monday that he would strongly recommend the administration veto the defense bill if lawmakers don’t act to end F-22 production.

Supporters of the F-22 have said capping production at 187 aircraft is too risky with potential adversaries such as Iran, North Korea and China looming.

Without aerial superiority, all your men and material are simply targets.  Threat aircraft moving into opposing forces’ inventory are highly advanced and very agile. 

In contrast, our fleet of fighter jets are pushing 30 years old and more.  The F-15D fleet has had to be grounded at least once due to design failures leading to mid-air disintegration.

We need new fighters.  Obama and his America-hating Leftists are cutting probably the single most important weapons system.

Then again, McCain is up to his old knife-in-the-back tricks.  It’s long past time for that RINO to retire.