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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums$1 Trillion plus for new fighter jets?
by Cora Currier
ProPublica, March 23, 2012, 4:05 p.m.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is the Pentagons big plan for future warplanes its slated to replace nearly all of the other tactical jets in the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. But getting there is going to be slow and expensive, as a new government report details.
The JSF program is a massively expensive undertaking. It has cost the government $400 billion to date, and is estimated to run more than $1 trillion to develop, buy and support nearly 2,500 aircraft through 2050.
A major problem, according to the Government Accountability Office report, is that the program is charging ahead with procurement while testing is still in progress. As Michael Sullivan, one of the reports authors, told Congress, the manufacturing processes are just never able to get stable because there's so much information coming in from testing and so many engineering changes that are going on. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.propublica.org/article/why-pentagons-new-fighter-jet-will-cost-more-than-1-trillion
Johnny Rico
(1,438 posts)supporting them for the next 40 years.
marmar
(77,049 posts)Johnny Rico
(1,438 posts)zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)Not to mention that these are replacements, but the cost of keeping and maintaining those aircraft they are replacing isn't zero. A more meaningful number is the "plus up" procuring replacement aircraft represents.
Johnny Rico
(1,438 posts)jet aircraft for the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps. Frankly, the figure seems quite reasonable.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)Reasonable in the sense of buying and maintaining aircraft. I'm not sure that one can make a solid case why we need 2500 of these in a world where manned aircraft are becoming more and more questionable. High flying, loitering bombers are predominately what is needed for the future. Drones and semi-autonomous weapons replace alot more of the mission. About the only thing then left is some forms of ground support, and interceptors. This is WAY too much for an A-10 kind of mission, and I'm dubious we need 2500 interceptors. Heck, it's becoming dubious that we need as many Aircraft carriers as we have.
Johnny Rico
(1,438 posts)Drones are the way of the future.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)These things were an ill-conceived engineering compromise to begin with, and today are already outclassed by the best European and Russian competitors. Shortly, they will be largely obsolete by the widening adoption of specialized mission unmanned drones that are dramatically cheaper and more maneuverable.
They're like the P-40 of the late 1930s. Also outclassed because the U.S. rushed to get something into production, and that seemed the easiest way to do it. At best a stop-gap. But, unlike the P-40, there is no great pressing need to produce aircraft. Only, economic and political pressure from defense contractors.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)The basic concept of a modernized "fighter" aircraft wasn't a bad idea. The old ones get more expensive every year to own and operate. But trying to create the "ultimate" fighter was silly. A modernized F-4 type aircraft would have worked. You need interceptors, and not necessarily alot of them. Then, as you suggest, alot of specialize unmanned aircraft, some autonomous weapons, and some loitering bombers. The emphasis of a "next generation" aircraft should have been focused almost exclusively on cost containment. Could have helped the whole world too, since they tend to end up buying our designs for their militaries.
bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)One failure after another, the F-18 is a great plane, and if we would have never sold them to other countries, we wouldn't have to replace it.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)It will reportedly replace the F-22, the F-16, the F-18, the F-15, and the A-10. (This is a touch of an over statement. The LONG RANGE plans are to replace all of these aircraft. Many of them will remain in service, albeit in smaller numbers, through 2025).
bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)Replace it.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)The F-22 replaced the F-15. The F-22 will stay in service - it's an air dominance fighter, whereas the F-35 is a fighter/bomber.
Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)The "facts" sometimes come fast and loose here. While I'm NOT one for buying more and more Super-stupendous weapons, it's necessary not to let bogus facts cloud things. Shit, that's the GOPs job!
Scuba
(53,475 posts)zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)But $1 trillion over that time span wouldn't BEGIN to pay for it. It probably wouldn't pay for the department that had to administer it, much less the actual health care.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)And you're likely wrong about admin costs, which are lower for Medicare than commercial insurance (as a %).
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)I'm not sure how much people think we could cut the MIC, but the costs of single payer over that period of time are not to be under estimated. It will cost alot. Yes, we are already spending the money, out of pocket or through our employment, as well as various other goverment programs. But that money will have to be "collected" and spent on health care. Other countries spend ALOT less on their health care, and it is still a huge portion of their budgets. I'm all for it, but I don't really see it as an "either or". We need to control our military budgets because they are too big. But even getting them down to "reasonable" levels won't produce enough savings to fully fund something like single payer. It will be a big, complicated, undertaking and will require significant changes in the way taxes are levied and collected to accomplish it. No one really even knows right now how we will do it.
"We can do it"..... but not by just cutting some fighter planes from the budget.
bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)+ 2 trillion for Iraq War, + 3 trillion for Future Combat systems ,ect,ect, I'd dont think you should be comparing the MIC to Health Care.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)You're talking about 40 years of spending here. How much do you think single payer will cost over 40 years?
In a way, I agree with you. It is pointless to compare the two at all. Totally different subjects in so many ways. It's kinda/sort my larger point.
bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)1st you need to kill single payer and Medicare to acheive peace, I got that part.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)I'm not trying to "kill single payer". Quite the opposite, I don't think we'll soon have a choice. The cost is going to spin so far out of control we'll have no choice. My only point is that it is a fantasy to think that modifying our MIC costs are going to "pay" for it. Never going to happen. We need to get control of our MIC costs because it is a colossal waste of money and a drag on our economy. But that's NOT going to pay the costs of a true single payer system. The two are unrelated in any fiscal sense.
Uncle Joe
(58,272 posts)You spoke up thread about how the F-35 was replacing the older planes in existence and the cost of maintaining them should be subtracted from the F-35.
The same most definitely holds true for the costs of maintaining our counterproductive and dysfunctional for profit health insurance system.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)Expenditures by the government would go way up, but that money would be collected primarily from some of the same sources that spend it directly right now. So to the economy at large, it could be a net savings, especially if we got the costs down to what other countries pay.
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)Unless we just let people die, of course, the most cost-effective way to deal with it.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)We waste a tremendous amount of money, as an overall economy, by not having single payer. We pay more for what we receive, it costs our government more to subsidize, and we often get inferior results from it. However, if we look at how other countries fund it, you often see what appear to us to be very onerous taxes and fees to collect all of that money that they ultimately spend on their health care. It will be a major re-organization of our economy to accomplish it. It isn't just a matter of reducing funding for the military, and increasing the wealth tax.
eomer
(3,845 posts)Moving to Medicare for all would probably cost about negative $1 trillion. In other words it would probably save a trillion, not cost a trillion.
So good job on the magnitude, you just messed up on the sign.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)If we actually accomplished the task of both covering everyone AND reduced the cost of health care down to what alot of other countries pay, we might save society that kinda cash over a 40 year period.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)Botswana? Andorra? Lichtenstein? The Penguin's Socialist Republic of Antarctica?
Gregorian
(23,867 posts)We've got to keep that big section of the economy alive. It should die.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)Actually, if you get to the people actually spending the money, China is the primary bogey man these days. But at the end of the day, it is really about our ability to PROJECT power that costs all the money. That takes bases, and aircraft carriers, along with all the equipment and manpower needed to keep/operate them.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)I'm sure that F-35s are extremely effective in weeding out Terra(!) cells in Sudan and Afghanistan. Or, they could try nuclear subs.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)And don't laugh. The navy was trying to find "conventional" weapons for their "boomers" including putting different kinds of warheads on the existing ballistic missiles. Even today I think they can launch Tomohawk cruise missiles from boomers. So we can bomb a wedding party in Afghanistan from an aging cold war submarine.
Johnny Rico
(1,438 posts)Each one can carry 154(!) Tomahawk cruise missiles, the equivalent of what is typically deployed in a entire surface battle group.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)"The Penguins' Socialist Republic of Antarctica" would be a kickass name for some hipster band
SATIRical
(261 posts)Earth_First
(14,910 posts)Nice RW meme...
SATIRical
(261 posts)in the DoD industry as a contractor.
I'm glad to know you don't think my job is worthy.
I didn't get the list, what job are "good" jobs?
Kolesar
(31,182 posts)For that matter, they get money under the table or sweet jobs at the aerospace companies for their children.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Nothing squiddish against the Chair Force.
Bigmack
(8,020 posts)anti-alec
(420 posts)Should be targetted for a major cut.
Let the other countries start building jets. THEN we can start worrying.
In the meantime, these old F-16's in the boneyards are still good.
Use them while they last.