The Most Expensive Weapons Program in American History?

Writing in the July/August issue of The American Conservative, William S. Lind, director of the American Conservative Center for Public Action, tells readers it is the F-35 airplane: “Procuring the F-35 will cost nearly $400 billion and require annual funding of an average $12.4 billion a year through 2038.”

[W]e are buying F-35s before we know whether they will work. Almost half of developmental testing remains to be done, and operational testing—determining if the plane works in combat, not just technically—has barely begun.

Republicans in Congress continually call for reducing the federal deficit. Sloughing off this albatross would save a neat trillion. At the very least, congressional budget hawks should demand a fly-off, where the F-35 would have to prove it is a better fighter than our existing F-15s, F-16s, and F-18s. Will they? No.

My view is that the U.S. should not have gotten into the Korean, Vietnam, Afghanistan (post bin Laden’s getaway), Iraq (second initiative) or Libyan adventures. So where would the supposed advanced technical advantages of the fighter, critics refer to as “Porky Pig” and claim “maneuvers like a brick,” be cost effective if even useful?