WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives was poised to approve on Thursday a $550.4 billion defense authorization bill for fiscal 2010 that has drawn a veto threat from President Barack Obama because it contains money for fighter jets he does not want.
The bill also authorizes $130 billion to fund the wars in Iraq andAfghanistan in the fiscal year that begins October 1.
The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said it supported the overall bill but the president's senior advisers would recommend a veto unless some provisions were dropped.
One congressional aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the White House veto threat as "a bargaining tool."
The Senate Armed Services Committee was to unveil its defense authorization bill for 2010 later on Thursday, but the legislation was unlikely to be approved by the full Senate until September. House and Senate negotiators must then hammer out a compromise version before final passage.
The OMB said it strongly objected to the House decision to include $369 million in advanced procurement funds to buy 12 more F-22 fighter jets built by Lockheed Martin Corp despite a Pentagon decision to halt production at 187.
Some lawmakers are pushing to continue production of the F-22 until a current ban on exports can be lifted to allow Japan to buy a modified version of the premiere U.S. fighter jet. The Lockheed program employs workers in over 40 states.
The administration also objected to House lawmakers adding $603 million to the bill to continue work on an alternate F-35 fighter engine being built by General Electric Co and Rolls-Royce Group Plc.
The OMB said the changes would delay the fielding of the F-35 and have an adverse effect on the Pentagon's overall strike fighter inventory. It said the risks of a fleet-wide grounding with a single engine, an issue raised by the Marine Corps general who runs the program, were "exaggerated."
He doesn't want to make money on the F-22's and he doesn't want to continue development of the F-35's.
What does Obama want?
They are going to argue the F-22 is useless against people in caves with RPG's (true) and that the F-35 is cheaper and better suited to our needs, so we need to keep our numbers of those up (false,and Pelosi has already promised to cut the F-35 by 25%).
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that to MAINTAIN manned air superiority we have to have the F-22 in sufficient numbers. Frankly I have been waiting to hear an argument from Gates that manned air is done, but it has not happened. Without that justification we NEED the F-22's and we need more than 187 to replace 751 F-15 c and d's. The F-35 is meant to replace the F-16 and the F-18 over the longer range.
Let Obama just say we can't afford this because of GM or AIG, or whatever. Let him say we have to make ourselves more vulnerable because of this crap and cut missile defense. Let him say that publicly funded health rationing is more important than defense in the world we live in.
I hope he does. I think more people actually believe it. Let's bring it all out.
1938
Fine
Pastorius,
ReplyDeleteI think Obama wants the world to love us, unfortunately, he doesn't seem to grasp just how much danger we are actually in, due to people who want to destroy our way of life and are willing to kill us in order to do it.
Epa,
ReplyDeleteWill anyone from our irresponsible media ever actually ask Obama those questions? I don't think so.
I have a feeling this will be swept under the rug. But, what do I know.
Damien,
ReplyDeleteYes, and like Epa said, it's 1938.
We can all along thinking we can live in a kind of benign isolation, not using our military, but one day this will all come down on us and then what is Obama going to do?
I think he will be thrown out of office.
The "mistakes" he is making are so egregious as to have been unthinkable in any previous generation.
But, as I said in the above comment, our irresponsible media does not even bother to ask him the questions which would put his decisions into context.