Old Bill and his buddy Goon got all hot and excited about the Deficit Commission report that was leaked to the press.
A much closer look and a
reading of the political tea leaves reveal something a bit more stark.
It was a poorly flown trial balloon and most of the cuts won't see the light of day. That's not to say that the US will not follow the lead of Europe and choose the comfort of its citizens over their protection, its just to say that some of these cuts in general and the ones to the F-35 in particular are probably not going to happen.
It was fun, but its time for the anti- F-35 folks to crawl back into their caves and think of a new plan to kill the airplane...this one is a non-starter.
The
draft, laid out in detail to commission members during two closed-door,
hours-long sessions, spares virtually no "sacred cow" programs,
proposing dramatic changes to Social Security,
once called the "third rail" of politics, pushes for limits to
Medicare, axes the popular mortgage interest deduction in favor of lower
income tax rates for all, freezes Defense Department salaries and
bonuses for three years and noncombat pay at 2011 levels for the same
period, and the list goes on.
Sen. Kent Conrad, D-ND, a commission member, did not sound confident
that 14 of the 18 members could agree on any proposal in order to move
it to a vote in Congress. "We've had trouble getting 14 people to agree
on what time of the day to meet," the Budget Committee Chairman said.
