Senate Sides With President Obama, Defunds Jet Engine

[cal04]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/07/23/us/politics/AP-US-Defense-Spending.html

The Senate voted Thursday to eliminate spending on a jet engine program the defense secretary says is superfluous, moving in step with Obama administration assertions that it is time to stop spending military dollars on programs that are not needed.

The voice vote on an amendment to eliminate funds for a backup engine for the F-35 next-generation fighter plane came as the Senate neared completion of a $680 billion bill that authorizes defense programs for the fiscal year starting in October.

Just two days ago, the Senate went along with Defense Secretary Robert Gates' campaign to change the way the Pentagon buys weapons by stripping from the bill $1.75 billion to produce more F-22 fighters, the high-tech aircraft that eventually will be supplanted by the F-35 as the military's main attack plane.

The White House has said that President Barack Obama would issue what would be the first veto of his presidency if the defense bill contained money for either of those programs.

[napoleon_in_rags]

1. Those guys need to figure out to merge their efforts with NASA or something.

They can develop their aerospace stuff if it has legit peacetime applications, so progress is made but the scope is not so narrow.

[lapfog_1]

2. Ummm... they DO.

All of the early prototype work for the next generation fighters is done at NASA facilities.

I saw many different model and prototype aircraft at NASA Ames when I worked there in the nineties. Not to mention that we did a lot of the work to try to fix the Osprey by studying the prop wash using Computational Fluid Dynamics and early virtual reality systems.

And there was other work of a more secure nature that took place as well.

[Jennicut]

3. Good, even if it hurts Pratt & Whitney (where my mother in law and step father in law work)

It was the right thing to do...waste of money.

[zbdent]

4. GM has to die, because their products were becoming obsolete and nobody wanted them ...

but hey, the F-22 employs people, and who cares if the Pentagon didn't want them, either?

I mean, it's not like the workers who do stuff for the F-22s could retool and retrain, you know, like the GM employees are supposed to do, right? (You know, for the good of the country ...)

[cal04]

5. Senate OKs defense bill clashing with House version

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/senate-oks-defense-bill-clashing-with-house-version-2009-07-24.html

The Senate late Thursday passed the 2010 defense authorization bill, setting the stage for more wrangling over key defense priorities for the Obama administration.

The bill, which authorizes $680 billion in defense spending for 2010, carries two hard-fought victories for the Obama administration: It cuts off production for Lockheed Martin's F-22 fighter jets and scuttles a secondary engine for the new Joint Strike Fighter. The massive bill also includes funding authorization for $130 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the new fiscal year which starts Oct. 1.

The Senate bill passed late Thursday by a vote of 87-7. Those seven voting against the bill were Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), David Vitter (R-La.), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) amd John Barrasso (R-Wyo.).

But now the Senate has to resolve differences with the House, which passed its 2010 defense authorization bill containing a down-payment for more F-22s and funding for the Joint Strike Fighter alternative engine, built by General Electric and Rolls-Royce.

Moreover, the Senate bill also expands the federal hate-crimes law to those attacked because of their sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or disability. The House bill does not contain such a provision, and in previous years when the Senate also included similar provisions they were dropped because of concern in the House that the defense authorization bill would not pass. But sources say this year, with a larger Democratic majority, the outcome could be different.