F22 Fighter Jet

Several weeks ago when I wrote to Duncan Hunter, he wrote back and said that we had an "aging" jet fighter in the F-16's, and needed to replace it. He also said that this new plane would provide 95,000 jobs. Why support such a boondoggle with the jobs it creates? This is why:

In an article at the Washington Post, if you can get the link, these salient points were made.

"Its troubles have been detailed in dozens of Government Accountability
Office reports and Pentagon audits. But Pierre Sprey, a key designer in
the 1970s and 1980s of the F-16 and A-10 warplanes, said that from the
beginning, the Air Force designed it to be "too big to fail, that is,
to be cancellation-proof."
Lockheed farmed out more than 1,000 subcontracts to vendors in more
than 40 states, and Sprey -- now a prominent critic of the plane --
said that by the time skeptics "could point out the failed tests, the
combat flaws, and the exploding costs, most congressmen were already
defending their subcontractors' " revenues.
John Hamre, the Pentagon's comptroller from 1993 to 1997, says the
department approved the plane with a budget it knew was too low because
projecting the real costs would have been politically unpalatable on
Capitol Hill".

If these expensive horrors are built, that means lots more jobs maintaining them and upgrading them, etc., and who has the expertise to do that? Why, the very people who designed and built them in the first place, of course!

And soon the call will go out for an even newer design correcting or upgrading for what, space flight? But before that happens, we can sell all our, and they are OURS, our money bought them after all, we can sell all our retired planes to a secondary market full of who knows whom? Isn't this special?

Duncan Hunter is in town soon, probably to receive accolades from his adoring followers. I hope someone has the guts to ask him just why he's pushing this thing? It can't be because it's a great plane or that we need it.

Who's responsible in this country for a runaway arms building industry? People like him, supported by people like them. The Pentagon doesn't want this plane, and we the people can't afford to throw away any more of our money. We have serious domestic problems to solve, like where did all the OTHER jobs go? Hmmmm???

To any government trolls wanting to make nasty degrading comments, I say "Go to Hell". That's where you belong, and you can't take your money with you, Nanner! If my friends want to criticize, that's fine, but no one else even gets a look in.