F-35 Joint Strike Fighter 1/2 Trillion Mistake

"The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter was supposed to extend American air superiority deep into the 21st century. The F-35 was designed to evade not just enemy fighters, but political accountability as well. Its subcontracts were spread out over 1,300 separate companies in 45 states, ensuring that members of Congress from throughout the land have an interest in keeping the project going. It’s an incredibly poor way to create jobs (depending on how you count, a single job supported by the F-35 costs the taxpayer as much as $8 million). We’ll spend around $400 billion to build the planes —nearly twice what the program was supposed to cost when it began. When this happens, nobody gets punished or held “accountable.” We just keep shoveling taxpayer money into the Lockheed coffers. And that doesn’t count the cost of repairing and maintaining the planes, which could push the cost past $1 trillion over time.

The problem is that the F-35 has been a disaster. Bursting into flames is just the latest mishap — it’s been so unreliable that at various points the planes have been forbidden from flying at night, or in the rain, or too fast, or too steep. There have been problems with hardware and software andeverything in between."

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