Bond sets sights on extending St. Louis-made jet fighter
Bond
WASHINGTON — With funding for one endangered Boeing plane likely secure at least for now, Sen. Christopher S. “Kit” Bond, R-Mo., is moving on, fighting reductions for an aircraft line that employs thousands in St. Louis.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates‘ 2010 budget calls for a reduction of F/A-18s — buying 31 instead of 40. The Defense Department is banking on the success of the internationally funded F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to fill the gap in fighter jets in the coming years, Gates explained in a Senate Defense Subcommittee today.
Bond has been a critic of the the $256 billion F-35 program — he satirically refers to it as the “Joint Strike Failure” – and argued at the hearing today for a bridge of F/A-18 procurement to continue until the Joint Strike Fighter is proven.
“Cutting it [F/A-18s] by a third when it’s the only plane that’s going to be available for the foreseeable future for the next aircraft carrier makes no sense,” Bond said in an interview after leaving the hearing.
“I’m an optimist because it doesn’t make sense to be anything else, but our national security really does require it, there is no alternative,” he said.
Bond did not mention during the hearing that 5,000 St. Louisans are responsible for assembling the planes.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen called the F/A-18 a great airplane at a great price but said all defense lines are eventually phased out.
“We’re at a point in time where we’re trying to figure out how long the program goes on, how many more years, and that’s really the analysis that’s at the heart of this,” Mullen said.
Even with the 31 F/A-18s being bought in 2010 and Gates’ statement at the hearing that the government would likely buy more in 2011, Bond said he was not satisfied and will continue to work for a multi-year procurement of the jets, which is how they’re usually bought and cuts down on the cost.
Bond has been working to keep orders for Boeing planes alive this budget session. He and other supporters succeeded in keeping eight orders for the C-17 cargo plane, a line that also employs 900 in St. Louis.
Bond is showing true seasoned leadership on this one. Say what you will about his politics, he knows how to accomplish goals like this in that institution.
I think it’s great the Claire has jumped on — she could learn a lot from Bond’s years of service in the senate.
But her late arrival still has a lot of people wondering …
Bond is showing true seasoned pork-ership on this one. We have hundreds of F-18s that are not in use now and probably never will be again. We certainly don’t need to waste money building more. Better to spend this money on protecting the lives of our servicemen for the battles we’re fighting today.
I’ll bite: Why “failure”?
Thanks for pushing weapons on the military that they don’t want or need. Multiply this times all the Senate districts and what a mess. Put America and it’s military first by butting out of procurement decisions, Senators.
I did not know the F/A 18 was “pork”. It is still one of the top fighter planes in the world. Or are all the other countries buying them spending “pork” money as well as the US?
Boeing big-wigs must be stocking Bond’s liquor cabinet with some good stuff. Nov 2010 Missouri will be rid of this alky once and for all….
F-18s are pork? What kind of crack are you smoking? Idiot!
How is this not an outrage?
Jim what are you talking about.
At some point this has to stop, it isnt about democrats or repubs it is about our politicians squandering our money on useless crap. Then getting huge campaign contributions from Boeing and their executives.
Bond is a scumbag, obviously
Bond may be on the pork trail but in this case he is right. The F-35 only has two percent of its flight testing done and is way behind and over-budget.
The head of the Navy, Marines and USAF have already lied to Congress in hearings pushing the F-35 as low risk; like it will just come off of the production line with no problems. This thinking is a nonsense.
Build more Supers to hold the carrier deck out past 2030.
I work for Lockheed Martin, Boeing’s main competitor. Trust me that my company is lining the pockets of it’s key senators who are fighting for the F-22/35 and against the F-18/C-17. The truth is that the defense budget could be considerably less if Senators & Congressmen put the nation ahead of their own selfish interests. If they had their way, we’d still be producing Sherman tanks and P-51 Mustang fighters just to keep a few hundred people employed. The F-22 has a 40-1 kill ratio in air to air combat exercises. Based on that, 100 available 22’s can sweep all our adversaries air force’s from the skies in any future battle the next 20 year’s out. So why keep producing them? Because of Lockheed sales/orders/profits, the aerospace worker’s unions and reelection campaigns in their states/districts. Complete waste of taxpayer’s money. Oh and the grunt on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan is not made any safer by this wasteful spending.