<p>With a trillion dollars being thrown at lamentable ( and laughable ) projects it seems to me we should be spending some for defense and the continuance of the F-22 Raptor lines which are at risk of closing down precluding the assembly of any more than the 183 fighters delivered so far.</p>
<p>American jobs and security are enhanced by the F-22 lines remaining open.</p>
<p>If you agree please check the link out below.</p>
<p>[Preserve</a> Raptor Jobs](<a href=“http://www.preserveraptorjobs.com/default.aspx?utm_campaign=F22&utm_source=Intermarkets&utm_medium=display&utm_content=jobs&utm_term=j301]Preserve”>http://www.preserveraptorjobs.com/default.aspx?utm_campaign=F22&utm_source=Intermarkets&utm_medium=display&utm_content=jobs&utm_term=j301)</p>
<p>And send a letter to the President and members of the Senate urging to spend some of the largesse intelligently.</p>
<p>Feel free to pass on to any like minded friends.</p>
<p>I can't imagine we'll get any more than the 183. Money is always tight, especially now, and the politicians just don't feel justified spending $X billion for technology that they don't think we need.</p>
<p>Trust me on this one, there wouldn't be enough public support for them to do that with any success. I'm part of the Student Congress team at my school, and at the last meet (National Qualifier meet, I'll be competing at Nationals even though it's only about a week before heading out to BCT!) and at the previous meet, I submitted a resolution to "allocate funding for procurement of a technologically advanced airfleet for the military". That was accepted meaning discussion was guaranteed. Since I wrote that resolution, I delivered an "authorship" speech. I mainly focused on the age of most aircraft in the fleet (my coach is retired MN AirNG so he helped a lot and gave me the idea to use the analogy of using 40 year old T-38s to learning to drive in a Model T then taking the road test in an F-1 racecar!) especially on the grounding of F-15s last year. Some of the rebuttal arguments really made me cringe. Some said "just because a slightly better TV model comes out doesn't mean you have to go get it" others claimed it was the fault of the maintainers that there were problems (one girl actually said she was kinda afraid after hearing my dad was deployed to Lakenheath for engine maintinance when she called all the mechanics lazy and apathetic). Long story short, the resolution passed by narrow margins in my house, but failed in the other two houses it was debated in (I was armed to the teeth with statistics and facts mostly from the Air Force Magazine almanac issue from my dad, so i'd like to think it passed because of me!)</p>
<p>So i'm not holding much hope for the public (some politicians too) to understand the needs of the military to help it complete missions most effectively. It looks to me that even though the new stimulus package is FULL of pork, nobody wants to spend any of that pet money on the military.</p>
<p>You need to add into the fact that the 35 will also be coming on line and that jet will be in the invetory for the AF, Navy and Marines. Plus, several countries are purchasing it. The AF will have a hard fight to get more because to the DOD. Why should they spend more money on a jet for one branch instead of spending it on a jet that 3 branches are going to use? It does not make fiscal sense. You might all love the plane, but when the chiefs get together to cut the financial pie up, I am pretty sure that the AF chief will have to give in on that fight.</p>
<p>For our elected leaders to spend intelligently would require an Act of God. Those two words together, when referencing Congress (or anyone else in a job by election), constitute the epitome of oxymorons.</p>