Barney Frank’s amendment removing money for the F-22 got shot down by the Rules Committee last night and won’t come up for a vote. That was the House’s last chance to take the extra F-22 funds out of the defense budget authorization bill.
The next stop is the Senate, where Armed Services chair Carl Levin and ranking member John McCain both oppose buying more planes than Gates requested—although House Armed Services backed the F-22 over the objections of its chairman, Rep. Ike Skelton. Of course, the appropriators also get to weigh in, too. In the Senate, that means this guy.
So, lawmakers have now come out swinging for two big programs that Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants to cut. In addition to the House’s backing for the F-22, the war supplemental passed by Congress earlier this month included $2 billion for C-17 cargo planes that Gates says the DoD doesn’t need.
