Lawmakers Should Be Looking at the Plane Itself as a Way to Cut Military Spending
SOURCE: AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
President Barack Obama, left, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, right, are fighting against Congress to rein in government spending on the alternate engine to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter plane, which Gates has called an “unnecessary and extravagant expense.”
By Sam Klug | June 17, 2011
The debate over the alternate engine to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter continues to reflect the misplaced priorities of Congress as the Senate Armed Services Committee marks up the National Defense Authorization Act this week. This unnecessary piece of military spending may live to fight another day in the 2012 federal budget despite repeated requests from the Pentagon and the White House to terminate production of the second engine. More importantly, the controversy over the F-35’s alternate engine distracts from a bigger issue at play in the NDAA negotiations: the skyrocketing cost of the F-35 itself.
The debate over the alternate engine to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter plane has long been contentious. President George W. Bush—who was responsible for raising defense spending to levels not seen in the United States since the end of World War II—tried to cut the engine as early as 2007. Yet President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates are still fighting against Congress to rein in government spending on what Gates has called an “unnecessary and extravagant expense.”
The aircraft that won the original competition in 2001 on the F-35 design used a Pratt & Whitney engine. But up until 2006 the Bush administration also requested funding for an alternate engine, built by General Electric and Rolls-Royce, hoping competition would drive down costs in the long run.
Independent cost analyses .. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/R41131.pdf .. by the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Institute for Defense Analyses, however, have both determined that the savings from such competition would not be able to recoup the costs required for the Pentagon to continue funding two production lines, two supply networks, and two workforces for the separate engines.
The Pentagon and the White House have, since 2007, repeatedly asked Congress not to fund production of the second engine. Congress at last appeared to listen .. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/us/politics/17-f-35-engine.html?ref=f35airplane .. this February, voting 233 to 198 to terminate construction on the alternate engine in order to save between $2 billion and $3 billion in next year’s budget. GE and Rolls-Royce then offered to pay next year’s development costs for the engine and the House Armed Services Committee acquiesced, allowing the second engine to live on.
It seems like the taxpayer is getting a good deal out of this move, with GE and Rolls-Royce funding the project themselves for a year. But the text of the House’s version of the NDAA suggests otherwise. By mandating that any government funding for improvements to the first engine must come through a process of “competitive development,” the bill opens the door for renewed competition between the Pratt & Whitney engine and its GE/Rolls-Royce counterpart. If the Pratt & Whitney engine isn’t perfect, the government could be on the hook for funding two engines once again.
The House’s acceptance of this move by GE and Rolls-Royce has brought us to where we are today: with an unnecessary engine still floating around in the NDAA as the Senate Armed Services Committee marks up the bill.
Unfortunately, the debate over the F-35’s alternate engine has distracted from the larger issue of the rising cost of the F-35 itself. The F-35 came with the promise of affordability, but current estimates place its lifetime operational cost at $1 trillion .. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-21/lockheed-martin-f-35-operating-costs-may-reach-1-trillion.html , more than twice the initial estimate of $420 billion.
As the Senate Armed Services Committee debates the NDAA in the coming weeks, senators need to examine the rising cost of the F-35 as a whole and not focus solely on the alternate engine debate.
Sam Klug is an intern with the National Security team at American Progress.
Q: The impression, particularly among Democrats, is that the Republican majority in the House is a bunch of crazies determined to do everything in their power to stand in the way of functional government. Is that wrong?
Former Rep. Steve LaTourette: It's wrong because the whole conference isn't crazy. The majority are trying to get the right thing done. But if you do the math and you need 218 out of 233 [to pass a bill], you don't need many people to leave the reservation to have a nonfunctioning majority. It's reasonable to say that within the group are some extremists. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=83107631
As Governors Meet, White House Outlines Drop in Aid to States
Christopher Gregory/The New York Times
A meeting of governors in Washington on Sunday, coinciding with White House budget warnings, included Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, second from right.
By ROBERT PEAR - Published: February 24, 2013
WASHINGTON — In an effort to put pressure on Congressional Republicans, the White House warned on Sunday that automatic budget cuts scheduled to take effect this week would have a devastating impact on programs for people of all ages in every state.
Cabinet officers sounded the alarm on television talk shows, and their concerns resonated with state officials, who were in town for the winter meeting of the National Governors Association .. http://www.nga.org/cms/home.html .
Daniel I. Werfel, the controller of President Obama’s budget office, held an unusual Sunday briefing to catalog the effects of the cuts state by state.
He and Jason Furman, the principal deputy director of the National Economic Council, said they were not exaggerating the damage that would be done.
In place of the across-the-board cuts, known as sequestration, Mr. Obama wants Congress to agree to what he calls a “balanced plan.” The plan includes cuts in selected domestic programs, savings in certain benefit programs and additional tax revenue collected from some corporations and high-income people.
The conflict is shaping up as a real-world test of the importance and value of the federal government. Democrats expressed confidence that Americans would feel the impact of an $85 billion cut in a $3.5 trillion budget, while Republicans insisted that they would not accept new taxes on top of those signed into law by Mr. Obama last month.
The White House intensified its campaign just as Congress was returning to work this week and some governors were expressing anguish over the impact of the impending automatic cuts in federal spending.
“We don’t do across-the-board cuts in state government, and it’s a stupid idea in the federal government,” said Gov. Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut, a Democrat.
But Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska, a Republican, said in an interview: “The White House is engaged in scare tactics. Every governor in this country knows how to cut their budget by 2 or 3 percent, and the White House ought to learn how to do it.”
“The sequester is not the best way to do it,” Mr. Heineman added. “We need greater flexibility in that process. But it’s hard for me to believe that America is going to be devastated by the federal government cutting its budget 2 or 3 percent. That’s a bunch of malarkey.”
Another Republican, Gov. Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, said in an interview, “The White House is in a campaign mode of trying to scare everybody, rather than sitting down with Congress and working out what the solution is to the budget.”
State-by-state estimates of the impact of federal policies have been a staple of White House efforts to mobilize public opinion for more than 20 years.
In its report Sunday, the White House described how the budget cuts would hit states, with an emphasis on jobs lost.
“Ohio will lose approximately $25.1 million in funding for primary and secondary education, putting around 350 teacher and aide jobs at risk,” the White House said. “In Georgia, around 4,180 fewer children will receive vaccines for diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, whooping cough, influenza and hepatitis B due to reduced funding for vaccinations of about $286,000.
“Pennsylvania could lose up to $271,000 in funds that provide services to victims of domestic violence, resulting in up to 1,000 fewer victims being served. In Texas, approximately 52,000 civilian Department of Defense employees would be furloughed, reducing gross pay by around $274.8 million in total.”
In addition, the White House said, many of the nation’s 398 national parks would be partly or fully closed.
On Friday, the administration said, $85 billion in cuts will automatically begin to take effect, with many domestic programs facing reductions of 9 percent and some military programs being reduced by 13 percent in the remaining seven months of the federal fiscal year.
Appearing Sunday on the CBS program “Face the Nation,” Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland, a Democrat, described the cuts as a threat to the economy.
“These are job-killing cuts, and we have to find a way to avoid them,” Mr. O’Malley said. “We cannot cut our way to prosperity. We need a balanced approach to continue our jobs recovery.”
Dan Pfeiffer, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, portrayed the Republicans as willful and obstinate.
“Republicans have decided they want the sequester to go into effect,” Mr. Pfeiffer said in a conference call with journalists. “They have decided that they are not open to compromise, that these cuts should happen, that these cuts are better for the country, better for 100,000 Americans to lose their jobs. It’s better for people to wait in longer lines at airports; it’s better for kids to get kicked out of Head Start than to close a few loopholes that benefit the wealthy. That’s the choice they’ve made.”
Mr. Pfeiffer said Republicans were undermining their own long-term goal of deficit reduction because “they don’t want to give the president the win of additional revenue.”
Republicans say the tax changes proposed by the president would stifle economic growth.
Sean M. Spicer, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said Republicans agreed that “the sequester is not the right way to control federal spending.” But he described the White House report on the state-by-state impact as “a public relations stunt.”
In deciding how to carry out the cuts, Mr. Werfel said, agencies have only “limited flexibility.”
“There are constraints to what an agency can do in taking this across-the-board $85 billion cut,” Mr. Werfel said. “The way the law is written, it has to be taken from a percentage cut from every program, project and activity.”
A version of this article appeared in print on February 25, 2013, on page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: As Governors Meet, White House Outlines Drop in Aid to States.
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