The F-35: A Weapon That Costs More Than Australia

[The Straight Story]

The F-35: A Weapon That Costs More Than Australia

The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is an impressive aircraft: a fifth generation multirole fighter plane with stealth technology. It's also a symbol of everything that's wrong with defense spending in America.

In a rational world, U.S. military expenditure would focus on the likely threats that the United States faces today and in the future. And at a time of mounting national debt, the Tea Party would be knocking down the Pentagon's door to cut waste.

But the only tea party in sight is the one overseen by the Mad Hatter, as we head down the rabbit hole into the military industrial wonderland.

...

Washington intends to buy 2,443, at a price tag of $382 billion.

Add in the $650 billion that the Government Accountability Office estimates is needed to operate and maintain the aircraft, and the total cost reaches a staggering $1 trillion.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/03/the-f-35-a-weapon-that-costs-more-than-australia/72454/

[rfranklin]

1. Now that makes a lot of sense...

"we're broke" but we can keep on building weapons to counter nonexistent threats.

[DJ13]

3. "we're broke" but we can keep on building weapons

So THIS is what they intend to spend the SS surpluses on instead of paying back the workers who deserve their money.

The SS fear mongering is starting to make sense.

[dkf]

9. The SS surplus subsidized the rich so they could pay lower taxes.

[no limit]

2. I wonder how much a public option would have cost. or even universal health care for that matter

[Drale]

4. A lot less then Australia

but the reason this aircraft costs so much, is not because of the technology but because of no bid contracts and fat payoffs for people involved.

[Angry Dragon]

5. But we need to have them to defeat all those tribal leaders in

Afghanistan ......... with them we should be able to leave by 2021

When you say you have the mightiest military in the world and you can not defeat an enemy in 10 years you should pack up your guns and go home

[msongs]

6. fortunately we have the world's smartest humans in charge - they are just playing totally stupid nt

[highplainsdem]

7. LOOK at this PBS story on the F-35 from April 2010. Tremendous problems with the fighter itself:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/jan-june10/defense_04-21.html

-snip-

WINSLOW WHEELER: We're only partway through with this thing. We have another five years of, you know, testing and development to go. We have only begun to learn about the problems. And, so, by the time this thing is done, it will be a record-breaker in terms of nightmares in costs, scheduling, performance.

-snip-

KWAME HOLMAN: But problems for the F-35 remain. The GAO says its hot exhaust may damage runways and flight decks on ships, and heat buildup inside the aircraft may impede its ability to operate in hot environments.

-snip-

BILL SWEETMAN: The risk is that the early aircraft you ordered have problems in them that you haven't found yet because you haven't done the testing yet. So, it goes back, essentially, into another factory. It gets pulled apart and rebuilt to the latest standard. And that is, economically, a nightmare. It's very expensive. It's not the way you want to do things.

KWAME HOLMAN: Critic Winslow Wheeler's prediction is more dire, that the F-35 never will be able to fulfill its mission, because it is too heavy to fight other aircraft in the air, but too fast, thin-skinned, and lightly armed to support troops on the ground.

-snip-

It's insane to be talking about "shared sacrifice" and slashing entitlements when we're wasting unbelievable amounts of money on weapons programs like this, which accomplish nothing but feeding the military-industrial complex.

[eppur_se_muova]

12. That last para is particularly interesting.

They are trying to design one plane for *every* mission, and that's going to be one hugely expensive plane.

Remember the "amphibious tanks" that recently got cancelled? They weren't designed just to get ashore and fight as tanks, they had an enormous seagoing range -- basically, half boat and half tank. Again, trying to do to much in one package led to one enormously expensive package.

[joshcryer]

13. It's very much like the cost-plus contracts that went in to NASA's Ares I and IV.

It's just corruption to the core.

[madrchsod]

8. econ101....

for every dollar invested the public good returns at least 4 dollars or more. military spending is a deficit.

so that 1 trillion invested in the public good would actually be at least 4 trillion

[Bigmack]

10. Not that I doubt you...

do you have a citation for that? I find the 4 to 1 returns a lot on things like National Parks, but I'm wondering if you have one source that says it all.

I need it.

[highplainsdem]

11. kick