President Convinces Congress To Scrap Additional F-22 Order

Obama really is smarter than Bush.

I wonder how many people will be laid off at the jet assembly facility because of the cut....

facilities, rather...

Man what are these Senators trying to keep the F22 going? I believe the original order was over 400 cut down to 187. The F35 is much more usefull and used on more than one branch of service. I heard these people trying to add more to just keep jobs going. Thats old and a miss use of our money. I,m sure some worker who's job is coming too and end understands the situtation. If not they are just selfish period. I wish these Senators grow some and listen to the President and people they represent. If you break it down to people they will understand.

outdated? is he serious. the f22 is the most advanced jet in the world, bar none. that's including the f35. and waste billions of taxpayers dollars? 1.75 is just a drop in the bucket, mr. president with how much crap spending you have forced through congress.

excuse me? your not the one who is going to pay for that 1.75x7 billion dollars, i am one of the many who will, i'm sick and tired as is of congress pushing american made shi* fighters and not paying to use better american made jet fighters! the 2,400 order for the f35's is so much bigger and it'll be an easier task to lobby for the gratns to build the facilities here in america.

and yes the f-33's are better, they cost less, and the military will actually freaking use them because they won't be worried about throwing 1.8 billion dollars down the freaking drain!

seriously, grow a pair, then thank obama for saving your sorry butt.

how am i not going to pay for them? im a tax paying citizen just like you. american made shi* fighters? you really have absolutely no clue when it comes to aeronautics. not that the f35 isnt a great jet, but the f22 is superior is almost every way, except that it is only made for the air force, and the f35 will come in three varieties.

why dont you grow a pair and stand up to the man who is single handedly taking over every industry in the united states and stifling competition while taking the decisions out of people who actually went to school to make those decisions.

you just keep drinking the kool aid. hopefully america figures out its laced with cyanide before we're stacked three deep in a south american jungle because we followed a man building a utopia so no one has any burdens. oh, the parallels..

the president may be in a situation where he knows some of our military's technology more then the common taxpayer, so there is, i'd say, a decent chance that the f22 is outdated compared to other things we have.

compared to other countries, and looking at the f22 in the scope of what it was built to do, it has no peer.

that said, the f35 is more then adequate, hell, the f16 is more then adequate, for almost any dogfight situation.

as for obama wasting money and taking over industry, yes he is, and most of us dont like it, but it is human nature to move to water if the well runs dry, and if this country dries up due to these changes in government, i have no problem doing whats best for my family and moving elsewhere.

Lost jobs? Big deal. Who wants a job building planes that don't get used? Those people will probably be happy to go find new jobs somewhere that their expertise in aeronautics and engineering will be put to good use. This isn't the cold war... there's no point in building crazy fighter jets just to prove we have good jets.
The only reason congress or any senators want to continue building F-22's is so they can collect more money from the taxpayers.

The President 'might' be in a position to know more? And perhaps the Joint Chiefs of Staff may know just a bit more? The stupidity and arrogance of some people are a - mazing. Obviously, we don't need the add'l F-22s. And which industry has been 'taken over'? Some of the 'citizens' threatening to leave should do just that. You probably don't pay your taxes, serve in the military, volunteer in your community, help out your family members, or look out for your neighbors, anyway. You may not be on standard welfare - but still a leech on society. Always negative without any interesting ideas or theories to throw into the ring. The majority of the US is getting sick and tired of the negative punks who sit around waiting for the sky to fall. A bunch of chicken littles... Invent something - solve a problem - earn the right to criticize.

Love, Peace & Soul

some of the 'citizens' probably dont pay their taxes? you have it all wrong. thats obama's cabinet that doesnt do that.

Ike R.:

FYI, Obama is maintaining the Bush position on these fighters. You might want to know the facts before making silly assertions.

bdhoro87. Lost jobs are a big deal, it is selfish of you to say that it is not. those people employed have families and mouths to feed just like you.And, planes that dont get used? most of our jets today dont get used. so maybe we should scrap all fighter jets but the few 100 that we actually use every year... thats real smart. have you not noticed on cnn in the last year that russia has buzzed US aircraft carriers several times and returned to practice bombing flights? you dont just build enough planes to 100 planes because you think we dont need any more than that, you build enough to meet the threat and then take over the skies. F-15 and F-16 are getting old. And incase you havent noticed, china and russia are currently building there own 5th generation fighters. and why on earth would you shut down a factory to build F22's and then more then likely have to change everything on the inside to create F-35? Why not leave the F22 production in place, and start new jobs and new factories building F-35's, thats called creating an economy. And whoever made the reference that some are not going to pay for 7 x 1.75billion needs to get there facts in order. The plane originally started out at 70mill per plane and eventually got up to 250mill per plane. that equals 1.75 billion. stop exagerating the numbers. And as far as the f22 being a shi* plane. In an air combat training the F22 took out 7 F-15. It is dumb to take this plane out.

zach537,

You made some good points, however, I disagree that these additional planes should still be produced. It is not as if the plants making the F-22 are being shut down, just that these 7 will not be added to the ones already in production or waiting to be. I would be interested to know how many of the mentioned 187 have already been produced and how long it takes to manufacture one.

There have been fights over stopping production of certain military hardware projects previously. However, just because the continued production of a plane, ship, missile has a direct positive impact on jobs in a particular state, does not mean it should occur. Yes, you have to consider economic impact, but that should not be the only deciding factor.

When the military leadership tells Congress they do not need the F-22 to get the job done in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. they need the F-35 for its greater flexibility, I think it behooves us to give added weight to their argument. To me it sounds like the objecting congressmen are saying, sure I know you need armored personnel vehicles, but well, we just can't get them for you. However, we have these top-of-the-line Porsches (built in our home states) that we can send you. If I were the general in charge, I would shake my head in complete disbelief.

I just don't like how he call's the project, "Outdated."
Obviously the F-22 is not made for close air support - it is for air-superiority. All respect to the F-35, but the F-22 is THE BEST in the world at what it does. It's like comparing the F-14 to the F-18.
I DO however agree to putting a hold on the Raptor program, at this point 187 F-22's are enough to deal with any threat that may happen soon. Don't scrap the program so that in the future if we need more we can build more.

Grendels04. I would tend to agree that there are some more urgent threats that need our attention. I do understand that there have been many Military projects that have been almost cancelled due to cost. The US is known for its unrivaled air supremacy over any battle field. Air supremacy lets the troops get the there job done without being bombarded from the air. However i do realize that on F22 in afghanistan does not have any more of a value on the sky then does an F-15,F16 or F18. But at some point Iraq, and Afghanistan will be in the past and no longer a threat, im not saying terrorism will be conquered, but eventually there will be bigger fish to fry, example would be NK,China or russia all of which will require air domination. I am a firm believer in the quote, "better to have it and not need it then to need it and not have it". I just hate to see us put aside a plane that is pretty much unrivaled and fall behind in the Air supremacy because we are too busy focusing on the here and now and not what could come in the future.

You call me selfish, but I think the selfish ones are the people getting paid with government dollars who want to continue making planes just because they get to keep their jobs. You really think its good for the economy to artificially create jobs that don't have an overall benefit to society? Yeah I'm not the one losing my job so it sounds a bit selfish, but if I was an aeronautics engineer working at Lokheed making F-22's I would have found a much more USEFUL job years ago. You make it sound like because Lokheed will have to let people go they won't be able to find better jobs. Its actually a fact that lay-offs are usually a benefit in the long-term, even for those people getting fired, because they no longer just follow the status-quo, have years of experience behind them that they hadn't before, and this allows them to find better, more secure jobs, in more secure industries. Much better than keeping them employed doing a job that is nothing more than wasting taxpayer money.

F-22 Raptor: $350 million
First conceived during the Cold War as an airframe to vie with Soviet aircraft that was never built, the F-22 is touted by manufacturer Lockheed Martin as the best overall combat plane in the world — not to mention the most expensive. It can shoot down enemy cruise missiles, fly long distances at supersonic speeds and avoid nearly all types of radar detection.

But the Senate debate over whether to build seven more — at a taxpayer cost of $1.67 billion — eventually came down to the plane's job-creating abilities.

The axed project would have employed 25,000 Americans.

(Pasted from Time Magazine Online: Top 10 Most Expensive Military Planes)

bdhoro87. yup im calling you selfish. Continuing to make these planes is not creating a false economy. If tour economy was growing and these people lost there jobs then ok i could see your point about them getting different jobs. But If you are paying attention to current times, people havent been able to go out and just get new jobs. Perfect example would be my Uncle. Aircraft mechanic for 16 years with Northwest Airlines, got laid off in 2003, has applied multiple times for diff airline companies and no one is really hiring due to budget cuts across the board. Just because he is a certified airline mechanic does not mean that he is can just go work on Trains and get a job. The same is true for the people that would build F22's. And im just confused as to why this is a waste of money to you. Peole Thought that the A-10 was a waste, but look, its one of the best Close support aircraft there is. Just think if everyone had your mentality, "Oh thats a waste of money" "Oh that job is Useless" if everyone had your mentality our airforce would be stuck with flying F-4 phantoms or F-86's. Our society moves forward because of building new concepts and designs, some of those designs arent perfect but succeeding doesnt mean to give up. So when china/russia team up and gain air superiority over US skies you can blame people who dont support these so called "Useless" jobs can blame yourselves for not wanting to move forward with inovative technology. Do you use a cell phone or a flashlight? If you do you should throw it out because in your terms was a waste of money. Do you know why? Well Millions of dollars at the time was spent to develope what we call the batteries for tools on the space shuttle. With that came stuff like power drills and vacuums that were used to take moon samples, "unless your a conspiracy theorists who believes we faked the landing" all those things were inventions that most of us would know we would ever need. So, now look at all the companies that make batteries and power tools. Better shut those companies down too because that was all a waste, and all those people need to be laid off because there are more usefull things to make then batteries and tools. Hope all those people can find a job in this economy so they can provide for there fams and have atleast the chance of decent health insurance.

Dude your talking like making 7 more F-22's is some advance in technology. I agree that when we take on extravagant, highly advanced projects like going to the moon, we end up creating a lot of technology with unforeseen uses, that has nothing to do with building a few extra planes while our fleet is already adequate. Your argument has gone a little overboard saying cancelling a few extra planes is preventing the advancement of technology. Innovation is not making the same plane 200 times...

bdhoro87. I say we dont build 7 f-22, i say we dont build 200 of them. I say we go back to the original plan building the proposed 800 of them like we did in 2001. That is called superiority. And your Right our current fleet is adequate for the Iraq/afghany war. But like i said earlier, at some point those places wont be a threat. Back in the 40'50'60's our fleet was adequate then with F-86's and F-4 hell we were still using some turbo prop fighter in the 50'60' which were adequate, but then im glad you werent running the country then because then you would have put a stop to the F-14, F-15 and F-16 and the F-18 because you would have thought that we would never need such advanced aircraft. Keep in mind the F-15,F-16,F-18 are all planes of which you call "adequate". Every test version of every current plane we have now crashed and went through hard times like the F22 did. But all those planes are top notch for now because we kept them around and made them what they are. With your thinking we would have fought Desert Storm in the early 90's with F-4 and F 86. while the Iraqis would have destroyed us with the Mig 21 and Mig 29. If they cancel these 7 F-22 then they will cancel all of them.

Ike R.

Way to derail the debate with a sardonic political jab. Will the political demagogues here please just keep it to themselves. I thought that this was a science-based website.

No doubt the F22 is the best but if u have a air combat between 7 F22(1.7 bil) or 15 F35 (1.7) squadrons the F22 will be killled with a 2 on 1 combat.The F35 also has a wide range of defense uses. Im not sayin Obama made a good choice but cutting the 7 bil will help in time

alberteinstien

What??? Why would the F-22 go up against the F-35? That's like saying, "In a war between the Army and Navy, the Army will win because there are more soldiers than sailors..."

I like the F-22, it's a pretty cool plane. But I don't believe the immediate threats or near future threats require such an advance plane to counter them. We're not at war with Russia or any other "modern" nation with next generation warplanes. Do you really need an F-22 to fight the Taliban? No. Do you really need an F-22 for a war with Iran? No. Do you need an F-22 for a fight with North Korea? Possibly, yes. But we're not going to war with the DPRK anytime soon and if we did, I'd imagine them using their few nuclear bombs on us which would force us to retaliate in kind and obliterate them from the face of the planet.