Eight foreign countries are already signed on to purchase their own versions of the F-35 when it hits production --
I didn't know there were that many US friendly nations in the world? Don't tell me... Israel... Saudi Arabia... real stalwart buddies, hey, they'd *never* turn on us.
And the liberals shall lead us (Barney Frank, via Krugman):
"We have a very odd economic philosophy in Washington: It’s called weaponized Keynesianism. It is the view that the government does not create jobs when it funds the building of bridges or important research or retrains workers, but when it builds airplanes that are never going to be used in combat, that is of course economic salvation."
Apologies if this is a rehash.
Eight foreign countries are already signed on to purchase their own versions of the F-35 when it hits production --
That's interesting. I don't think Congress has allowed international sale of the F-22. That says a lot, doesn't it?
So basically the only thing America manufactures these days, aside from Hollywood movies, is war?
ThresherK, Barney Frank is a DFH socialist. Why should we listen to him?
America also makes cars. They are so important that we threw billions of dollars at them as well. This is the problem with the earmark system in general. Congress should not be allowed to specify how money is spent. They should only be able to allocate the budget to the departments. In theory, the departments would have people that are more knowledgable about their specific fields and would be better at determining how money should be spent. Of course in reality, the whole thing is just politics and it is more about who you know than what you know and it seems like the majority of tax dollars just get wasted on pet projects meant to buy votes for those in office.
Jim said..."Congress should not be allowed to specify how money is spent. They should only be able to allocate the budget to the departments."
Good idea, get the $$$incentives$$$ out of the congressional offices and back into the free lunches and martini's where they belong!
While we're at it, how about a law that says a bill can only address one issue and cannot be modified or added to in any way that is not directly related to the single issue? Would that be a bad thing? Eliminate earmarks? Eliminate tagging on something totally unrelated to the original bill just to get it rammed through without serious argument or analysis?
And I think we should eliminate the middle man on this warfare-welfare thing. Lets make the planes right here and then turn them loose in the Good Ol' USA® and blow up our OWN bridges!! Why let those DFH foreigners get all the money to rebuild bridges!
Badges? BADGES?? We don't gotta show you no stinkin' BADGES!
America also makes cars.
When we don't outsource that production to Mexico, you mean?
You know who makes cars in America? The Japanese.
"You know who makes cars in America? The Japanese."
Yep, but now America owns its very own car company and so we are in the business of making cars (supposedly). All of the cars I have bought lately have been Japanese cars made in America i.e. Honda. That probably makes me a bad American for not supporting our union jobs.
While we're at it, how about a law that says a bill can only address one issue and cannot be modified or added to in any way that is not directly related to the single issue? Would that be a bad thing? Eliminate earmarks? Eliminate tagging on something totally unrelated to the original bill just to get it rammed through without serious argument or analysis?
I agree with you on all of these. A lot of bills have attachments that have nothing to do with the original bill. People are then blamed for voting against "the children" if they vote against a bill titled "the child protection act" which spends 15 billion dollars on a zoo project in Kansas.
Ummm the first F22s were delivered in 2003. How can that be a "Cold War Relic". Bad source you used right there.
Par for the course! Don't let facts get in the way!
It's been in development since 1981 and the first prototype was begun in 1986. It was selected by the Air Force in 1991. Read about it here.
Apparently these advanced weapons systems don't grow on trees. In the case of the F-22 it took them so long to develop the damn thing that the entire reason for its existence--the Soviets--had gone away.
Perhaps that's why the Pentagon doesn't think we need any more of them, and the ones we already have are enough.
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