Calling Out GOP Hypocrisy When It Comes To Military Spending

With federal spending still on a lot of people’s minds, it’s worth noting another section of the budget deal between House Republican leaders and the Biden administration contained a 3.3 percent hike in defense spending. That means in the next fiscal year, America will spend roughly $886 billion on defense programs and personnel.

While it’s undeniably true that defense is a constitutionally-mandated federal activity, spending willy-nilly isn’t. There’s plenty of waste in the Department of Defense budget – as well as allegations of price gouging. But the budget is so big, and dispersed over so many projects, in so many congressional districts, that lip service is paid to waste, fraud, abuse and so on. Why kill someone else’s program that is wasteful on its face…when they may come for my program next?

Consider the case of one of the Pentagon’s largest and costliest programs: the F-35 joint Strike fighter. This next generation aircraft has been touted as the most advanced, sophisticated, and versatile aircraft yet built. It’s also an unfathomably money pit. As the Government Accountability Office reports, the F-35 will “cost nearly $1.7 trillion to buy, operate, and sustain the aircraft and systems over its lifetime.”

And yet it will cost even more than that…because the F-35 has a cooling problem:

…DOD is 5 years into a development effort to modernize the F-35’s capabilities. This effort, known as Block 4, is experiencing developmental delays for important technology updates. Block 4 costs also grew to $16.5 billion, an increase of more than $1 billion since GAO last reported.

What is this program and what kind of money are we talking about.”

The program is exploring options for modernizing the F-35’s engine and thermal management system that is used to cool aircraft subsystems that generate heat. The program plans to manage this multi-billion dollar effort under the existing program, which is scheduled to transition to sustainment soon and that would limit congressional oversight. The cooling system is overtasked, requiring the engine to operate beyond its design parameters. The extra heat is increasing the wear on the engine, reducing its life, and adding $38 billion in maintenance costs. [emphasis added]

So it runs hot. Okay, how does the Defense Department propose to fix it…besides throwing cash at the problem?

The program assessed some engine and cooling improvement options, but it has not fully defined the requirements for how much future cooling the aircraft will need.

It seems like your guess is as good as anyone involved in this massive weapons program. But until someone gets a handle on what needs to be cooled and how much cooling is needed, can we have more money, please?

Which brings us back to federal spending, and the Pentagon’s raise.

Again: there’s no disputing that national defense is a federal responsibility. But in an age where government finances are a sea of red ink, one would think that even defense spending would be under consideration for – if not outright cuts – at least a degree of restraint.

That, apparently, is heresy in official Washington. Which helps explain why government spends like it does, on programs like the F-35, that are obvious candidates for a thorough budgetary review to see if all that money is being spent with even an ounce of wisdom.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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