Murtha: Congress may add more F-22s

[unhappycamper]

Murtha: Congress may add more F-22s
By John T. Bennett - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Feb 12, 2008 17:52:56 EST

The House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel is talking with Air Force officials about adding money to buy more F-22 Raptor strike fighters, said Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., the subcommittee’s chairman.

The money, which would likely run into the hundreds of billions of dollars, would be appropriated in the 2008 or 2009 supplemental, Murtha said at a Washington conference on defense procurement hosted by Aviation Week.

Murtha complained the service is wasting too much money to keep older fighters in the air. Instead, he said, the U.S. should be buying new jets.

After Murtha’s talk, an aide said these jets would be beyond the four included in the 2009 budget request.

“Four doesn’t get you anywhere” — meaning four planes would not keep the production line open beyond the current contract, the Murtha aide said. Asked how many more would be needed to keep the line open, the aide said, “Twenty a year is where we’ve been for a while.”


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2008/02/dn_murtha_raptors_0212/



uhc comment: Twenty F-22s a year = $330,000,000 x 20 = $6,600,000,000. Perhaps the Navy can give up some of their $600,000,000 LCS ships or a few of their $2,500,000,000 Virginia class submarines?