Only until Congress comes up with the tax loot.
"Pentagon orders hold on funding for Lynn plant's ‘extra’ jet engine; White House, Defense oppose second program March 25, 2011|Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon yesterday ordered a temporary halt to funding for an alternative engine being developed at GE Aviation plants in Ohio and Lynn, Mass., for the next-generation warplane, angering congressional backers who vowed to fight President Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to save the program.
“The administration and the Department of Defense strongly oppose the extra engine program,’’ the Pentagon said, noting that Obama did not include money for a second engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in his budget for the next fiscal year.
Related: Obama Cuts Defense Budget Less Than One Percent
Also see: Israeli Plans to Buy F-35s Moving Forward
I just thought you should know why you are funding an engine the Pentagon does not want, American taxpayers.
“In our view it is a waste of taxpayer money that can be used to fund higher departmental priorities, and should be ended now,’’ the Pentagon said in a statement announcing that it had issued a stop-work order that lasts up to 90 days, as the engine’s fate is being decided in Congress.
GE Aviation spokesman Rick Kennedy said no jobs would be immediately affected by the order because the company intends to self-fund the project “through this crisis.’’
This the same GE that designed and buil bad nuclear reactors?
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Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, said the Pentagon “may be on the other side of the Potomac River, but it’s not on an island. It has to follow the law like everybody else. And it cannot thumb its nose at Congress and decide whether it will or will not obligate spending that has been signed into law by the president.’’
It makes me so happy when Democrats throw money at the war machine.
Last month, House Republican freshmen led the charge in voting to cancel $450 million for the alternative engine in a bill to fund the government through the rest of the fiscal year.
That's the Tea Party folk.
See:
Tea Party Refuses to Take the Pledge
Tea Party Threatens Pentagon
That's the real Tea, readers, not the usurpers and carpetbaggers.
The House vote was 233 to 198, with many lawmakers arguing that it was a surefire way to fulfill campaign promises to cut spending.
That bill, however, was defeated in the Senate, and the government continues to be financed through a series of stopgap measures.
The current three-week stopgap spending bill includes money for the alternative engine....
And I will bet the latest deal did, too.
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Hey, it's not all bad:
"GE Lynn plant gains from F-35 delay" Around the Region March 24, 2011|By Theo Emery
Delays to the Pentagon’s next-generation jet, the F-35, are benefiting workers at the General Electric Aviation plant in Lynn, say officials at GE, which has been on the losing end of a long-running battle over the engine for the new jet.
The Navy said this week it would buy 68 engines, worth $246 million, from GE for F-18 Hornets. Almost half of the work will be done at the Lynn plant.
The engine buy is part of the Pentagon’s expected yearly aircraft procurement, as the armed services must regularly replace aging aircraft. But GE Aviation spokesman Rick Kennedy said the Navy procurement is larger than usual because of the cost overruns and performance delays to the F-35 program....
About 45 percent of the F-18 engine work is done at GE’s Lynn plant, with the rest done in Kentucky, Ohio, New Hampshire, Vermont, and other states.
Along with the F-18 contract, the Pentagon said it will pay GE up to $453 million for repairs to existing aircraft engines being used across the armed services, including those used in Apache and Blackhawk helicopters.
The new F-18 engines represent a silver lining to GE travails over the F-35. Since the 1990s, the Pentagon has paid GE to develop an alternate engine for F-35, but both the Bush and Obama administrations soured on the alternate engine program, calling it a waste and urging Congress to defund it.
And yet somehow it always makes it back in the budget.
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