Salute!
Do not forget that the U.S. Chair of the Armed Services Cmte represents a company that competes with LM, and the F-35 is replacing one plane that company makes. Surely there can be no hint of bias, much less actual tactical employment experience or ignorance huh?
He's talking about "cost effective". What you need to be looking for is "combat effective". I have to remind him that in actual combat, there ain't no points for second place. USAF and USN and a host of nations are keeping plenty of 4th generation systems around for a long time. It's the near peer or better threats that the F-35 is intended to handle. Results at Red Flag seem to show it will do just fine in combat.
...Gums sends...