The original article says that they aren't trying to reduce spending. They want to take money that used to go into long-term maintenance and put it into into R&D and manufacturing. Instead of keeping the planes flying for 30+ years, they want a steady stream of new, up-to-date specialized designs that they keep in the air for 13 years or less. They want to force China and Russia to play a never ending game of catch-up.

It would be a shake-up in the current system, but is fully compatible with running a nationwide jobs program.

It also means opponents have thirteen different aircraft they have to train against!

In theory if the cycles are faster, and not 30+ years, there's not so much pressure to make sure everyone gets a piece of the pie. If you're churning out brand new planes every decade, you can stagger the spread.

Indeed, awarding lots of smaller contracts instead of a few big ones would seem to be a good way to ensure more people get a piece of the pie.