Your tax dollars at work....GRRR!!!

[Mike Drew]

The Air Force spends close to a billion dollars (when all is said and done) to buy new planes made in Italy (so no US jobs created) and flies them straight to the boneyard! And some idiots in congress are trying to buy more of them!

New Air Force Planes Go Directly to "Boneyard" | Military.com

 

[John Milmont]

Some government official's friend is making money.. We should increase the size of government so we have more of this kind of thing.

 

[Pete McCluskey.]

That is criminal in every sense of the word. How come this isn't front page news given the current debt crisis?

 

[Larry L.]

How come it isn't front page news even W/O the debt crisis?

 

[Doug S.]

Agreed!!!

Cheers!

Doug

 

[Sean]

I think these were planes intialy ordered to give to afghanisatan. Now we are not so sure we want to give htem or if they are the right planes. There is a batch of helicopters from Russia, paid for by us, in the same boat.

 

[Doug]

Woah there folks. I have to take exception - being a 20 year AF veteran and (so far) a 15 year civil servant - I believe you have to read the article...
"The Air Force almost had to buy more of the planes against its will, the newspaper found. A solicitation issued from Wright-Patterson in May sought vendors to build more C-27Js, citing Congressional language requiring the military to spend money budgeted for the planes, despite Pentagon protests."
The Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, etc. do not "spend" money that is not appropriated by Congress. Certainly they argue for their programs, however in the end we can all blame our elected leadership. That leadership is in charge of our American military whether we like it or not.

 

[Larry L.]

..."citing Congressional language requiring the military to spend money budgeted for the planes, despite Pentagon protests"...That leadership is in charge of our American military whether we like it or not.

Maybe it's been changed since 'Nam, but the same type of idiocy at least used to apply to aircraft fuel allotments for aircraft carriers. If the 'bird farm' didn't burn up all of its allotment for a given fiscal quarter, the allotment was cut for the next. So, approaching the end of any given 'quarter, if there was an excess of jet fuel aboard, planes were launched solely to burn it up.

'Brilliant...

 

[Sean]

all beracracies have budget allotments which they guard. The cardinal sin is not to spend the budget.
Now if you want to talk epic epic waste, look the the f35 program.
The plane we really still need is the simple ones like the a10, which of course is being scrapped.

 

[Pete McCluskey.]

All of the above is so typical of big government waste. The rule that if you don't spend your budget it gets cut next time is one of the reasons for such waste.
Imagine the savings if bureaucrats got rewarded for not spending their allocated budget instead.