Guys the F22 is replacing the B2 Spirit which is an aging program. Also, has anyone ever heard of air superiority? We need 5th gen fighters. Older multirole aircraft will be gradually phased out with the F35 post 2011. Therefore the priority of the US fighters and bombers will be F/A18s, F22s, and F35 JSFs.

Who said that?  We should actually be spending more on the military short term.... and less long term.

Short term military spending is a great way to boost things up.  We should increase our spending to replace and modernize our military stock now... and spend less on it later.   Buy replacements for all the stock we've wasted in Afgahnistan and Iraq. 

We're low on military power cause we don't have enough troops right?  Lets increase our troop goals.  Make some special recuritments on a 2-3 year run.  Train them for special jobs... and then cut them lose 3 years later with better job training.

The military when it comes to nondeployment is great for short term stimulus that leaves us with longterm benifits.

I'm gonna go ahead and agree with halogamer that we need the F22. Mostly because a big chunk of our local economy relies on it.

The F-22 is a fighter, the B-2 is a bomber (Hence F and B). Why would you reduce the bombing capabilities by replacing bombers with fighters?

Not to mention there are only like... 20 B2's out there.

Though popularised and the most well known bomber today... even more then the B52... we don't really use it.

Besides which I thought they were all being assigned to that new military department.  That's like the Airforce... except nukes.

Talk about giving one guy too much power.  Giving one general command of all our nuclear arsenal.

Maybe he meant in terms of the jobs it's saving?  That which used to make the B2 are being shifted to the F22 therefore jobs it creates is decepitive because it's saving already existing jobs?ll them... to anybody.  Plenty of foriegn governments... friendly ones at that would love to get their hands on them.

Before the economic crisis countries like Japan were lobbying the US to lift the ban on them.

F22's are light on the fuel... for Jet Fighters.  Which makes them heavy on fuel, but if your going to fly em.  They're the ones to fly.

The thing about weapons are... deadly weapons are always an easy sell.  People always want to ugrade to the newest best way to kill people that want to kill them.

The same can't be said for things like alternantive fuels and other systems.

Heck, look at hospitals.  They've had the technology to greatly reduce patient deaths by replacing their paper files with computerized ones allowing doctors to confrence and give second opinions from miles away... a practice that has been shown to work amazingly and cut down on costs.

Yet hospitals don't want to go through the trouble to upgrade to save lives due to the cost and being set in their ways.

There is a lot to be cut in military spending before we get to research. I didn't say don't cut the military budget.

However, while I think we spend to much money in the military, I do think that's one place the government is suposed to spend money. Massive spending packages to bail out companies that need to fold is not.

I was referring to the F35 which is a multirole bomber, close air support, and air defense aircraft. It has 3 models-conventional TOL; short take off and vertical landing; and carrier based. Basically, it is a Swiss Army Knife, made by Lockheed Martin and leased to numerous countries in order to defer enemies and kick serious ass if need be.

Multirole aircraft frees the AF, USMC, and USN from aging planes that are a burden to maintain and letter upgrade. Plus the US won't just ditch the F14s, F16s, and F/A18s--foreign sales will give the economy an added bonus.

all that talk about the F22 I had to look up the wiki entry on it. Man that thing is pretty bad ass.

Akuma is right about you guys.

3 million is WAY too much to save a wetland field mouse.

But 5 trillion over the past what 5 years is what we need in order to stay like ~5 generations ahead of the enemy in stealth fighter technology!

We could stand to cut just 20% of that; and we save what, 1 TRILLION dollars over the next 5 years? That covers the entire stimulus package right there!

I mean seriously, the military spending pie chart looks a LOT like nintendo's marketshare in the videogame market (and Europe looks like PS3, lol); but I digress.

The united states almost spends more than everyone else in the world COMBINED. They spend 6 times more than the 2nd highest military, China. I'm not saying do anything drastic here, but I think the nation will survive if they only outspent their next highest superpower only by a factor of 4 or 5 instead of 6.

Why do we justify these HUGE defense budgets while at the same time domestic stuff like intrastructure (i.e. the Bridge in Minnesota, or the Levies in New Orleans) or Healthcare constantly get ignored until a disaster happens?

The military budget isn't $711 billion a year. It's $1 trillion. Add the cost of murdering millions of Iraqis and Afghanis, nuclear weapons programs (squirreled away in the Dept of Energy), foreign military aid (a vast boondoggle), veteran's benefits and medical care, and Homeland Security (another vast boondoggle) and you get $1 trillion easy.

This is, as the economists like to say, unsustainable, to the point that even if neoliberalism wasn't melting down, our society would still be in deep, deep trouble.

As for why the US Empire is slashing its own financial wrists - that's pretty easy. Here's a clue: US 2008 = USSR 1990.