thedrifter
04-14-09, 05:19 AM
Saving the F-22
It is probably no accident that Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced plans to drastically reshape the defense budget while President Barack Obama was out of the country. Gates’ plans to kill or curtail several costly weapons systems — including one made in this state — have set off a furor.
But if anyone is making a national security argument, we have not heard it yet.
Mostly, members of Congress — and Connecticut’s are among the most vocal — are saying: “Don’t take good jobs from us in a time of recession.”
Bless them for saying so. There is a recession on and people are hurting.
But think about it: National defense has become a jobs program — so reduced is our industrial base, and so fledgling is our economy of the future.
One of the most significant cuts Gates wants to make is to end the F-22 Raptor fighter jet — halting production at 187 jets. The Pentagon is almost at that number now.
Lockheed Martin, which produces the $140 million jets, says halting production of the F-22 threatens more than 90,000 jobs nationally.
The engines are supplied by Pratt & Whitney.
Pratt says that without additional F-22 aircraft orders, the company will be forced to halt orders from suppliers within months. That could mean a very quick loss of 2,000 to 3,000 Connecticut jobs.
So, we may not need the fighter, but we do need the work.
Gates says that Lockheed’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, also powered by Pratt, will be accelerated instead. He’s recommending doubling the number on order to 30 and increasing funding from $6.8 billion to $11.2 billion. He said the Pentagon ultimately wants to buy 2,443 of them.
The Pentagon said there are already 38,000 employees working on the F-35, and that the number would shoot to 82,000 in fiscal 2011. So for a loss of 90,000 jobs we pick up 44,000 — in two years.
Sen. Joe Lieberman says that by cutting F-22 production, “our industrial base will suffer a major blow before the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter reaches full-rate production.”
Where do these workers go, meanwhile? From three months from now to two years from now is an eternity in limbo.
Again, jobs.
Gates is right. Our arsenal is geared to fighting a conventional war of supersonic fighters and large naval fleets against Russia or China while our actual adversaries fight with shoulder weapons, car bombs, and explosives buried in the road.
The F-22 has not seen action in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
The Joint Strike Fighter, on the other hand, has multiple configurations and could be flown by the Air Force, Navy, Marines, and the British military.
Also taking a hit from Gates is the Army’s $159 billion Future Combat System, a complex network that links advanced fighting vehicles, surveillance aircraft, robots, and battlefield sensors. Gates would cancel $87 billion in the program that would develop a new generation of heavy tanks and armored vehicles.
He would spend $11 billion to increase the Army by 65,000 and the Marines by 27,000.
That makes sense, and is long overdue reprioritization. Invest in soldiers and protecting them.
Gates also killed $13 billion for new presidential helicopters, a program that had grown steadily from its original $6.1 billion estimates. John McCain urged this on the new president and the president said, OK, that his helicopter seems adequate to him.
Look, Gates is doing his job. He is not secretary of labor or commerce. He is secretary of defense.
Defense strategies, weapons, and forces must change to protect the nation. And we cannot afford the new Defense Department and the old one. The money from most of the programs being cut will simply be redirected. There will be no overall savings. The Pentagon budget is still expected to increase from its current $513 billion to $534 billion in fiscal 2010.
But Gates will have a fight on his hands. These costly, older defense programs are backed by the so-called “iron triangle” of military program officers, members of Congress with defense plants in their districts, and the huge defense industry itself.
That’s us. We in Connecticut, especially east of the river, are part of the triangle. It means the jobs of our friends and family, already greatly diminished over the last 20 years. It means our towns, tax bases, and schools.
Gates said he hopes that “members of Congress will rise above parochial interests and consider what is in the best interest of the nation as a whole.” Fat chance.
When it is your job or your neighbor’s job on the line, you fight for it. It’s not pork to you. It’s not parochial. It’s East Hartford. It’s bread on the table. It’s our economy and our heritage. And if Reps. John Larson and Joe Courtney did not fight for Connecticut jobs, we would be pretty angry.
But the reality is that the world changes. And we cannot keep it from doing so.
Connecticut cannot bet its future on jet engines and nuclear subs. Just as we can no longer count on the insurance industry. We need to develop the so-called knowledge economy in our state. We need new jobs, ones that are not in insurance and defense or on Wall Street. We may save the F-22 this time. But it will not be forever. We’ve had 25 years to make a new plan. Time’s up.
Ellie
It is probably no accident that Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced plans to drastically reshape the defense budget while President Barack Obama was out of the country. Gates’ plans to kill or curtail several costly weapons systems — including one made in this state — have set off a furor.
But if anyone is making a national security argument, we have not heard it yet.
Mostly, members of Congress — and Connecticut’s are among the most vocal — are saying: “Don’t take good jobs from us in a time of recession.”
Bless them for saying so. There is a recession on and people are hurting.
But think about it: National defense has become a jobs program — so reduced is our industrial base, and so fledgling is our economy of the future.
One of the most significant cuts Gates wants to make is to end the F-22 Raptor fighter jet — halting production at 187 jets. The Pentagon is almost at that number now.
Lockheed Martin, which produces the $140 million jets, says halting production of the F-22 threatens more than 90,000 jobs nationally.
The engines are supplied by Pratt & Whitney.
Pratt says that without additional F-22 aircraft orders, the company will be forced to halt orders from suppliers within months. That could mean a very quick loss of 2,000 to 3,000 Connecticut jobs.
So, we may not need the fighter, but we do need the work.
Gates says that Lockheed’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, also powered by Pratt, will be accelerated instead. He’s recommending doubling the number on order to 30 and increasing funding from $6.8 billion to $11.2 billion. He said the Pentagon ultimately wants to buy 2,443 of them.
The Pentagon said there are already 38,000 employees working on the F-35, and that the number would shoot to 82,000 in fiscal 2011. So for a loss of 90,000 jobs we pick up 44,000 — in two years.
Sen. Joe Lieberman says that by cutting F-22 production, “our industrial base will suffer a major blow before the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter reaches full-rate production.”
Where do these workers go, meanwhile? From three months from now to two years from now is an eternity in limbo.
Again, jobs.
Gates is right. Our arsenal is geared to fighting a conventional war of supersonic fighters and large naval fleets against Russia or China while our actual adversaries fight with shoulder weapons, car bombs, and explosives buried in the road.
The F-22 has not seen action in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
The Joint Strike Fighter, on the other hand, has multiple configurations and could be flown by the Air Force, Navy, Marines, and the British military.
Also taking a hit from Gates is the Army’s $159 billion Future Combat System, a complex network that links advanced fighting vehicles, surveillance aircraft, robots, and battlefield sensors. Gates would cancel $87 billion in the program that would develop a new generation of heavy tanks and armored vehicles.
He would spend $11 billion to increase the Army by 65,000 and the Marines by 27,000.
That makes sense, and is long overdue reprioritization. Invest in soldiers and protecting them.
Gates also killed $13 billion for new presidential helicopters, a program that had grown steadily from its original $6.1 billion estimates. John McCain urged this on the new president and the president said, OK, that his helicopter seems adequate to him.
Look, Gates is doing his job. He is not secretary of labor or commerce. He is secretary of defense.
Defense strategies, weapons, and forces must change to protect the nation. And we cannot afford the new Defense Department and the old one. The money from most of the programs being cut will simply be redirected. There will be no overall savings. The Pentagon budget is still expected to increase from its current $513 billion to $534 billion in fiscal 2010.
But Gates will have a fight on his hands. These costly, older defense programs are backed by the so-called “iron triangle” of military program officers, members of Congress with defense plants in their districts, and the huge defense industry itself.
That’s us. We in Connecticut, especially east of the river, are part of the triangle. It means the jobs of our friends and family, already greatly diminished over the last 20 years. It means our towns, tax bases, and schools.
Gates said he hopes that “members of Congress will rise above parochial interests and consider what is in the best interest of the nation as a whole.” Fat chance.
When it is your job or your neighbor’s job on the line, you fight for it. It’s not pork to you. It’s not parochial. It’s East Hartford. It’s bread on the table. It’s our economy and our heritage. And if Reps. John Larson and Joe Courtney did not fight for Connecticut jobs, we would be pretty angry.
But the reality is that the world changes. And we cannot keep it from doing so.
Connecticut cannot bet its future on jet engines and nuclear subs. Just as we can no longer count on the insurance industry. We need to develop the so-called knowledge economy in our state. We need new jobs, ones that are not in insurance and defense or on Wall Street. We may save the F-22 this time. But it will not be forever. We’ve had 25 years to make a new plan. Time’s up.
Ellie