What's More Important?

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Major General Paul Selva tells Congress and the President that if we don't increase our defense budget for the Air Force now, our fleet of fighters will fall apart and we'll lose our dominance in the world of air power. Steve Kosiak at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments says that the Air Force has expensive tastes. Kosiak says we’re spending more on F-22 and F-35 replacements than we spent on the F-15’s being replaced. Well Steve, considering that we bought the majority of our F-15’s over twenty years ago, things cost a little more now. Not to mention, new technology should be more expensive. Should we put the same technology we had in 1985 in our F-22’s? That makes sense. We just had an F-15 completely disintegrate in mid-air back in November because it was too old and the frame couldn’t handle the G-Forces any longer. Luckily, that pilot made it out alive. Maybe we should ask that pilot if we should try to fix all our F-15’s with 8,000 plus hours (when they’re only supposed to have 4,000 to be retired) or pay less money for a new F-22 than it would cost to fix our incredibly aged F-15’s.
Kosiak also commented that the Air Force wanted more money than all three other services combined. He says it like something is wrong with that. Considering that one M1A1 Abrams Tank costs 4.3 million to replace and one F-22 Raptor costs on average about 160 million dollars. The Air Force’s toys cost more. Maybe that’s why they require more. Then comes along Gordon Adams who says, “Until someone constrains these budget requests, the hunger for more will charge ahead unchecked”. So, the Air Force wants more money because of our hunger for more? Maybe we’re hungry because for too long we’ve starved, starved for the tools and equipment to remain the dominant Air Force in the War on Terror and throughout the world. Maybe we should cut back on government spending and stop paying these two way too much for way too little. Just a thought.