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Saxby’s War
Travis | Apr 22, 2009 |
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God I wish my college had a cooler mascot
With Congress returning from recess, this week was supposed to mark the beginning of Defense Budget Wars 2009. Surely lawmakers impacted by Secretary Gates’s reform initiatives would launch a full frontal assault to keep alive whatever planes, ships, or vehicles were absolutely critical to [national security/their reelection], right?
Thus far, only the silence has been deafening. There are some preparations going on; for instance, Rep. John Murtha is circulating a “come hither” letter inviting any member whose district may be impacted by Gates’s proposals to come have a chat. But the base budget targeted for changes appears to be in limbo on the Hill until the detailed request comes out next month.
Some congressional reticence is explained by the lack of paper – how can members object to a budget that doesn’t physically exist yet? Yet it also seems clear to me that members are waiting to see how the politics shake out and may be reconsidering their initial reactionary responses.
Take, for example, the F-22 Raptor and Senator Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia. As soon as Gates announced that no F-22s would be requested, Chambliss fired off a furious press release harshly criticizing the decision and vowing to “work to overturn the secretary's recommendation to continue production of the F-22.”
This advocacy made sense. Chambliss and fellow Georgia GOP Senator Johnny Isakson are two of the F-22’s biggest supporters in Congress, primarily because the plane’s airframe is produced by Lockheed Martin in Marietta, Georgia. With high-tech aerospace jobs at stake in a state with a 9.2 percent unemployment rate, does anyone realistically expect anything but F-22 shilling?
Since Chambliss came out hard and fast in opposition on April 6, however, consider what has transpired. First, the Air Force Secretary and Chief of Staff wrote in the Washington Post that “we do not recommend that F-22s be included in the fiscal 2010 defense budget.”
Then Lockheed Martin, the lead F-22 manufacturer, decided not to lobby to keep the F-22 alive. Even more intriguing, in what seemed to be an indirect plea to Chambliss to back off, Lockheed’s chief financial officer, Bruce Tanner, specifically mentioned the Marietta plant yesterday in a press briefing. Tanner said that Marietta would keep assembling F-22s through 2012 and would also benefit from additional C-130J orders, C-5 upgrades, and more funding for the Joint Strike Fighter. These offsetting benefits undercut the argument that ending the F-22 will catastrophically affect employment in Georgia.
Now, this doesn’t mean that Lockheed won’t be happy if Congress reinserts money for the F-22 – they certainly will. But by laying down their lobbying spear, Lockheed has gutted the F-22’s muscle on the Hill, particularly now that the Air Force leadership has come out against it.
These developments mean that the F-22 battle now pits the White House, Pentagon leadership, Air Force leadership, and (half-hearted) Lockheed Martin versus Chambliss, Isakson, and other Raptor-obsessed lawmakers from Texas, New England, and elsewhere. This political alignment is far different from what has existed before.
While it is never wise to underestimate the power of a single member of Congress – particularly in the Senate – F-22 supporters are up against a strong coalition of military and civilian leaders that are ready to end the program. With Gates flooding the zone by proposing such a wide array of program changes, I’m just not sure Chambliss and Co. will be able to defend so many receivers at once.
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