The stealth design of the F-35 joint strike fighter is supposed to make it nearly invisible to enemy radar, but the super high-tech combat aircraft may not be able to avoid the bull's-eye of Pentagon budget-cutters.
Congress' failure last month to agree on $1.2 billion in additional deficit reduction measures means the Defense Department is facing enormous funding cuts mandated by law. Without new congressional action to restore funding, experts say, the Pentagon will be forced to make big cuts in spending on new weapons.And the F-35 is easily the biggest target for cuts because it has a large and growing price tag, rising from a planned $7 billion in new orders in 2012 to $14 billion-plus in 2016."When you look at cutting back on programs to save money, you're going to start with the biggest programs," said Todd Harrison, defense budget analyst with the influential Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments think tank.Lockheed Martin officials conceded as much Thursday. Speaking at an investment conference in New York, Bruce Tanner, Lockheed's chief financial officer, said it is unlikely the F-35 can evade the coming budget cuts.When the biggest funding cuts take effect in 2013, "I have to believe F-35 would build at a lower rate," Tanner said in response to questions at the Credit Suisse conference.That could be bad for employment at Lockheed's plant in west Fort Worth, where the F-35 is being built.Lockheed now has 6,100 people working directly on the F-35 program there, spokesman Joe Stout said, about 3,000 of them production workers and the rest in development or other support activities.Without stepped-up production, employment at the Fort Worth plant won't grow and may decrease. As F-35 development and engineering work begins to wind down, Lockheed may cut workers in those fields without the once-expected, offsetting increases in production jobs.There is virtually no scenario under which the Pentagon and Congress would kill the F-35 program, analysts say. But under the Budget Control Act of 2011 enacted in August, the defense budget will be cut about $12 billion in 2012, $60 billion more in 2013 and then be nearly frozen through 2021.National security spending, most of which is included in the Pentagon budget, must take 50 percent of the required cuts, Congress decreed. President Barack Obama will have the option of exempting spending on military personnel from cuts, which would force even deeper reductions from weapons, operations and maintenance."The problem ... is not so much the depth of the cuts but the abruptness with which they occur," Harrison said.It's next to impossible for the military to quickly slash troop levels, close bases or mothball aircraft carriers."When you're forced to make the cuts very quickly," Harrison said, "you have to go where there's easy money," and that's weapons."It is impossible for the JSF to emerge unscathed during the first tranche of budget cuts. Lockheed knows it's impossible," said Travis Sharp, a defense budget analyst with the Center for a New American Security.What is likely to happen, analysts say, is there will be little or no increase in production rates at Lockheed Martin and its suppliers and few new jobs created. The Pentagon, in its 2012 budget submission, had hoped to increase orders steadily from 30 planes in 2011 to 108 in 2016.Lockheed is already in the process of cutting 670 workers in Fort Worth by the end of the year as part of an effort to reduce overhead and operating costs that are passed on to taxpayers in the price of airplanes built for the military.Few if any of those jobs are directly tied to the F-35 program, Stout said. Lockheed has about 14,000 employees in Fort Worth.Lockheed's F-35 workforce and that of its suppliers both locally and around the globe have been growing in line with the Pentagon's planned production increases.One factor in the F-35's favor that will complicate the government's decision-making is that in order for the high cost of each plane -- well over $200 million currently -- to come down, production rates need to go up. And if the costs don't come down, the Pentagon and most of the foreign nations expected to buy F-35s may not place orders."There's a significant danger that if there are further cuts to the program it would unravel the business plan," said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute and a consultant to Lockheed.Bob Cox, 817-390-7723Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
