Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, called Friday for increased production of the F-35 joint strike fighter and suggested that its critics, namely Sen. John McCain, visit the mile-long factory on the city's west side before continuing to push for cuts in the Defense Department's largest weapons program.
Granger made her remarks after a morning tour of the facility with Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., whose district includes Eglin Air Force Base, where F-35 pilots are trained. Both said that when Congress reconvenes next week, members should consider the nation's security goals before cutting into defense programs.Granger's offensive followed Texas Sen. John Cornyn's letter last month to Ashton Carter, who is in line to become the Pentagon's No. 2 official, urging Carter to support the F-35 more strongly. Carter's appointment as deputy secretary of defense must be confirmed by the Senate this month.McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, has been particularly critical of the F-35 program, which is billions over budget and behind schedule. In a May hearing, he complained that despite spending $56 billion so far, the F-35 "still has not yet been proven to be reliable," and in July he disclosed that the first 28 aircraft alone were $771 million over budget, which he called "outrageous."Friday, McCain spokesman Brian Rogers responded to Granger, saying McCain "knows the facts surrounding the F-35 joint strike fighter better than any member of Congress and doesn't need any tour from Congresswoman Granger." He added that if Granger "supports wasting taxpayer dollars, that is of course her prerogative."Granger said one way to improve the plane's price "is ramping up the production. This plant, with its investment, can produce more and faster, and that's what we need to do."Granger's defense of the F-35 program, worth an estimated $382 billion for 2,443 aircraft for the Air Force, Navy and Marines, illustrates how important major government projects are to elected officials, said Paul Benson, chairman of the department of government at Tarrant County College. About half of Lockheed's 14,000 Fort Worth employees work on the F-35."When you're fighting to protect something in your back yard, you take the shots when you need to take them," Benson said. While members of the same party don't routinely criticize each other publicly, defense programs aren't considered particularly partisan and leave more room for "family disagreements," he said.Or, as defense analyst Winslow Wheeler put it Friday, "pork trumps politics." Wheeler is with the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C., and worked on congressional staffs for 30 years.He said the first sign of the F-35's immediate future should come this month when the defense subcommittee of the important Senate Appropriations Committee marks up the Obama administration's proposed defense budget."They need to find roughly $30 billion to take out of the president's request" of more than $670 billion, Wheeler said. "The F-35 is low-hanging fruit. Cornyn and Granger are nervous, as is Lockheed, and well they should be."Granger acknowledged that "the emphasis the last two years has been to cut spending," and as members return to Washington next week, "everybody is looking at that. That's why we say to the critics, understand the facts. Make sure we have a clear look at this."She warned that with the cancellation of the F-22 program in 2009, "the JSF is what's out there. There's not a Plan B."Wheeler disagreed."The Pentagon is full of Plan B's for the F-35, from upgraded F-18s to the new F-16," which is also built in Fort Worth, he said."There are alternatives all over the place, and the overseas purchasers have even more alternatives," he said of foreign nations that Lockheed hopes will also buy the aircraft, sales that would help bring down the average cost per plane.Jim Fuquay, 817-390-7552Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
