How the F-35 Became Too Big to Kill

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February 22, 2013

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is 70 percent over its initial budget and seven years behind schedule, but it’s in no danger of being cut. That’s because the advanced fighter jet sources its parts from 45 states and employs 133,000 people, which are numbers that quash any real congressional opposition to the program.

A Bloomberg story about the jet quoted POGO’s own Winslow Wheeler about the special protection the F-35 enjoys.

The F-35 is an example of how large weapons programs can plow ahead amid questions about their strategic necessity and their failure to arrive on time and on budget.

“It’s got a lot of political protection,” said Winslow Wheeler, a director at the Project on Government Oversight’s Center for Defense Information in Washington. “In that environment, very, very few members of Congress are willing to say this is an unaffordable dog and we need to get rid of it.”

Read the rest of the Bloomberg story to see why the F-35 should be cut, even though it’s unlikely.

Image from Flickr user CherryPoint.

Topics: National Security

Related Content: Defense, Joint Strike Fighter, Wasteful Defense Spending

Authors: Andre Francisco

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