When last month the House voted to cut $450 million in funding for the extra engine lawmakers had demanded for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (yes, they were building two different engines), you might have responded, "Well, at least that's something." But the truth is, that $450 million isn't just a drop in the Defense Department budget; it's a drop in this one plane's bucket. Dominic Tierney explains:
The F-35 is designed to be the core tactical fighter aircraft for the U.S. military, with three versions for the Air Force, Navy, and the Marine Corps. Each plane clocks in at around $90 million.So, how many F-35s do we need?
100?
500?
Washington intends to buy 2,443, at a price tag of $382 billion.
Add in the $650 billion that the Government Accountability Office estimates is needed to operate and maintain the aircraft, and the total cost reaches a staggering $1 trillion.
In other words, we're spending more on this plane than Australia's entire GDP ($924 billion).
Other estimates for the cost are even higher; one GAO analysis pegged the per-plane cost at $112 million (and again, that's the up-front purchase price, which doesn't include what it'll cost to maintain it). And over time, the cost of weapons systems tends to move in only one direction -- up.
I'm sure the F-35 will be cool, full of whizbangery and technoawesomeness and explosifantastication. And Crom help the al-Qaeda air force when its fighter pilots try to engage ours in dogfights with the F-35. But over a trillion dollars?
But since it's not "non-defense discretionary spending," there really isn't anything we can do about it.
