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A comment on Pentagon: Trillion-Dollar Jet on Brink of Budgetary Disaster. Parent comment

Re:Pentagon: Trillion-Dollar Jet on Brink of Budgetary Disaster by holograham on Thursday March 22, 2012 @05:19PM (#3742057)
some basic math...1 trillion over 40 years is about 25 billion a year....US budget in 2012 was 3.796 trillion FOR THE YEAR....so that is 0.6% of the budget. I think we can all agree that it is certainly militarily advantageous to have air superiority keeping in mind that it is mainly for the wars we dont fight and will never fight rather than our current conflicts.

Also these articles fail to mention the planes that will be retired over the next 40 years that the JSF will replace. Lots of costs savings that arent included.

Military superiority is supported by practical every political base including libertarians. Large, complex aircraft cost a ton to produce. Is there waste? Sure but some of the waste is due to our own democratic political system. Easy to cast all blame on greedy govt contractors.

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Re:Pentagon: Trillion-Dollar Jet on Brink of Budgetary Disaster by read_wharf on Thursday March 22, 2012 @06:39PM (#3742408)
We could replace those planes with cheaper alternatives.

The total program cost may be a small part of the budget, but our economy would do better if we spent that money on things we can use, not things that sit in a hangar and suck up money.

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