By Damian Paletta and Doug Cameron December 12, 2016 Donald Trump took aim at the Pentagon’s costliest program on Monday, saying on Twitter the “program and cost” of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter “is out of control.” This is the second defense program in recent days the president-elect has unloaded on for cost issues. Last […]
By Kyle Midura December 12, 2016 The battle over bringing the F-35 fighter jet to Burlington took a turn Monday with a tweet by President-elect Donald Trump. Just before a pair of F-35s touched down in Israel, a tweet from President-elect Donald Trump sent the manufacturer’s stock into a free-fall. “The F-35 program and cost […]
By Winslow Wheeler December 22, 2016 On Dec. 12, 2016, president-elect Donald Trump asserted that F-35 unit cost was “out of control” through his preferred medium Twitter. On Dec. 19, 2016, U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan, in charge of the Joint Strike Fighter project, gave the press his version of things. Multiple media […]
By Andrew W. Clevenger March 8, 2016 A majority of Americans favor cutting the US defense budget in five out of seven key areas, including nuclear weapons and missile defense, according to a new University of Maryland survey released March 9. Nationally, a majority supports modest budget cuts to air power ($2 billion), ground forces ($4 billion), […]
By David Wichner Feb. 28, 2016 Davis-Monthan Air Force Base would start losing its A-10 Thunderbolt II attack jets as soon as the fall of 2018 under a new plan to retire the entire A-10 fleet by 2022. The Air Force said in early February it would delay its proposed retirement of the A-10 ‘Warthog’ […]
By Phillip Swarts Feb. 22, 2016 The Air Force is asking for an increase of $1.3 billion to its main operating budget in fiscal 2017, but it doesn’t increase end strength, according to budget documents released Feb. 9. Top brass has requested $120.4 billion for FY2017, leaving Air Force end strength to about 490,000 airmen; the […]
By Sarah Sicard Jan. 14, 2016 Though Sen. Bernie Sanders advocates for spending cuts, he also supports the costliest program ever funded. Democratic candidate for president and Vermont senator, Bernie Sanders, seems to have contradictory policies regarding the Defense Department. Within his platform regarding the military, he suggests that the U.S. military spends too much […]
By Ben Armbruster Feb. 17, 2016 As we all know by now, Bernie Sanders is campaigning on a promise to change American politics in such a way that benefits the middle class and working families at the expense of corporate greed and influence. “I am asking you to be part of a political revolution,” Bernie told […]
By Col Michael W. Pietrucha, USAF May-June 2014 The Air Force intended eventually to replace much of the post-Vietnam fighter fleet with the F-35A. This stealthy aircraft possesses advanced technology and was intended to be no more expensive than the aircraft it was designed to supplant. The Air Force sought to buy 1,763 F-35As—the number required […]
By Bill French August 2015 The National Security Network (NSN) is pleased to release a new policy report, Thunder without Lightning: The High Costs and Limited Benefits of the F-35. According to our analysis, the F-35 lacks the capabilities to execute its primary mission, and costs too much relative to its predecessors. The Department of […]