Endi 2011 / Daniel/Jason/Kevin/Marc/MiHe/Parth/Simrun
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U – F-35F-35’s on the chopping block now Newsweek,10 (11/13/10, http://www.newsweek.com/2010/11/13/the-air-force-s-war-toy-wish.html) MO As Lockheed Martin’s Marietta, Ga., plant prepares to begin building the 187th—and last—F-22 super-fighter, the military is already dreaming of its successor. In a query to the aerospace industry earlier this month, the Air Force laid out its wish list, and it wants everything: a plane that can win dogfights, demolish air-defense missile networks, support ground troops, and run surveillance missions; a partial prototype would be ready by 2020, with entry into service by 2030. This may be wishful thinking, given the saga of the current wondercraft, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. With a development and production price tag of more than $380 billion, the F-35 is the costliest acquisition program in Pentagon history. Different versions are being developed for the Air Force, Navy, and Marines. But the plane is bedeviled by technical problems, ever-rising costs, and slipping schedules, with the Marines’ incarnation presenting the toughest challenges. Last week the co-chairmen of President Obama’s deficit-reduction commission proposed gutting the program. On Nov. 22, a Pentagon review board is scheduled to take a hard look at it. F-35s threatened by spending cuts Goozner 2/10/11 (Merrill, independent author, former journalism prof @ NYU, http://gooznews.com/?p=2474) JDP Critics ranging from the president’s bipartisan fiscal commission to former military officers to a coalition of liberal and conservative groups backing steep Defense Department cuts have put the F-35 at the top of their list of Pentagon programs that could be scaled back or eliminated without damaging national security. The Fiscal Commission, for instance, called for cutting the program in half. Their report suggested the fighter fleet could remain at its current size by extending production of modernized F-16, F-18 and A-10 jets, which would save $9.5 billion over the next five years. “The unit cost of F-35 aircraft is estimated at about $133 million compared to $40 million for an F-16 and $80 million for an F-18,” the fiscal commission report said. “The U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy, the military’s current fourth-generation fighters – the F-15, the F-16, and the F-18 – are superior to Chinese and Russian aircraft, and they are less expensive than the F-35,” noted Gordon Adams and Matthew Leatherman in an article in the latest Foreign Affairs. F-35s threatened to be cut off- one version already discontinued Fenholz ‘11 (Tim Fenholz, National Journal staff writer, http://www.nationaljournal.com/house-gop-calls-for-cuts-in-security-spending-20110203?print=true, accessed 7-1-11,) MO House Republicans are proposing to slash $74 billion in discretionary spending this year, and have included a surprise cut of $16 billion for defense and other security programs. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is expected to file a budget resolution Tuesday using unilateral powers granted to him by new House rules. Under those rules, his overall budget numbers will amount to marching orders for the House Appropriations Committee, which will have to decide on the specific cuts. Because House appropriators have the authority to set specific limits for all categories of discretionary spending, they could choose to ignore Ryan's call to allocate some of the cuts to security programs. Alternatively, the security cuts could simply hit programs that Defense Secretary Roberts Gates has already targeted for cancellation, such as the Marine Corps' Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle produced by General Dynamics and the Army's surface-launched advanced medium-range air-to-air missile developed by Raytheon. Gates has also put the Marine Corps' troubled version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a Lockheed Martin program, on a two-year probation that free up cash this fiscal year. New spending trades off with key projects F35 Ewing 11 - (Philip Ewing-Author at Defense and Acquisition journal. “Panetta’s challenge: Not just cut, but cut quickly” http://www.dodbuzz.com/2011/07/06/panettas-challenge-not-just-cut-but-cut-quickly/) MO For what it’s worth, Kaplan sees the F-35 as a potential target, too — although as you’ll see, he got its name wrong: Cutting Air Force or Navy personnel would mean getting rid of airplanes or ships, a move that would sire a separate set of controversies. (Then again, it’s likely that Panetta will cancel or cut back some planes and ships, if just to spread the pain; the Air Force and Navy’s troubled Joint Strategic Fighter, aka the F-35 stealth aircraft, is a likely candidate. But there will be limits here, as his predecessor, Robert Gates, already cut a few dozen systems, and further cuts would spark political fights, especially given the already-high unemployment rate.) By contrast, cutting Army and, to some extent, Marine personnel would mean erasing brigades or divisions from the roster and warehousing their weapons—which could then be transferred to other units as training or replacement gear, for more savings still. None of this is necessarily to say that the Army or Marines should be slashed—only that they almost certainly will be, given the traditional end-of-wars syndrome, the enormous pressures on the federal budget, and (a new factor) an emerging coalition of anti-war Democrats and anti-spending, isolationist Republicans. Link MagnifierRising costs of new DoD projects tradeoff with existing projects Francis 11 - Managing Director at US Government Accountability Office (Norman D. Dicks, “DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2011”) MO The collective performance of the programs in DOD's portfolio is a key indicator of how well the acquisition system generates the return on investment that it promises to the warfighter, Congress and tax payers. On the whole, cost growth continues to have an adverse effect on the quantities programs are able to deliver to the war potential. Cost increases have an impact on DOD's buying power for individual systems, as demonstrated by changes in program acquisition unit costa As program costs increase, DOD must request more funding to cover overruns, make tradeoffs with existing programs, delay the start of new programs, take funds from other accounts, or reduce procurement quantities fate deliveries delay providing critical capabilities to the warfighter and result in operating costly legacy systems longer than expected finding alternatives to fill capability gaps, or going completely without the capability. Utimately, continued cost growth reduces DOD's overall buying power and results in less funding being available for other DOD priorities and programs. The Navy's fiscal year 2010 long range ship construction plan of one such example: the plan provides for fewer ships at a higher unit cost both the near term and the long than the Navy outlined in its fiscal year 2010 plan because cost growth has mounted in current shipbuilding programs and the Navy has had to reallocate funds planned for future ships to pay for ones currently under construction. Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 0.51 Mb. Share with your friends:
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