Jesus, where do I begin.
Simply saying the government is always in debt and still spends 800 billion on defense verges on intentional ignorance. Yes governments borrow to keep liquidity in the public purse, but that is usually paid off in the very short term by their tax income. The simple fact of the matter is that the US is dealing with a colossal structural deficit and needs to save much more than even sequestration mandates.
each service gets a budget so the air force can't ransack the maw-rines whenever they are short on funds.
You're completely missing the point. The Air Force can't, but the politicians can. In the hypothetical (and highly possible) situation that a cut in order numbers for the F35 is demanded by the government, the Air Force would absolutely be in the position to campaign against the marine variant in favour of more As.
Budgets do work that way, budgets work only to deliver what is necessary in the eyes of the government, not to be shared equally between all 3 services for fairness.
You don't have to lecture me about the use of combined air assets as a tool to the chief of joint ops.
with 800 billion a year spent there is plenty to cut and a lot of services will just cut other stuff depending on how much they want the jsf. there is plenty of low hanging fruit to pick still. I refuse to believe that in the span of one year the military suddenly got super effeicent and there is nothing left to cut. personnel are going to be the biggest cut anyway.
This 800 billion you keep quoting is already $525 billion, without sequestration and the war funding, that will evaporate after Afghanistan, isn't included in the cost savings. So just what is this low hanging fruit still to pick?...if you think "efficiencies" are going to save you another $500 billion over the next 9 years, then you would have to be on glue or something.
Not really, for the reasons i have outlined above. the air force can't raid the navy or marines' (which is another navy) bank. the navy may not like the f-35c but even the marines are buying some to help with the carriers. so for example that's 80 F-35cs the navy gets that they can back door through the marines. if that money goes the odds of getting the same number of super hornets both through them and the marines (who won't want it, and will try to land base them like they do f-18Ds). at that point we are talking about paltry numbers of aircraft for the carriers, thus fewer carriers. the navy wont let that happen.
Well for a start, in all these budget cuts, the threat of losing one carrier strike group is also very real possibility anyway. How would opting for an in-service, cheaper alternative aircraft mean even fewer air frames???
if canceling the B and C death spirals the cost anyway, whats the point? how does it "save"? thats cutting the program to the tune of about 600 fewer aircraft. which drives the cost up further and will see the UK leaving the program? people already fear Canada and the US navy (possibly) leaving as creating a death spiral and thats only 65, and 260 aircraft respectively. what happens when 600 are cut? does it collapse the program? I'm betting yes, in which case the air force certainly doesn't get what they want, which was the point of shafting the the RN, USMC, and USN in the first place.
Obviously no-one involved wants any aircraft cancelled, but I can guarantee that aircraft numbers are going to fall significantly and any cut in numbers is going to increase the cost...but refining the programme to just one design would probably mitigate some of those extra costs. You speak as if you still believe 2400 is an achievable number for the US services, which to me seems quite blatantly not the case any more. I would go as far as to say I would be surprised if they achieve half that number.
Why does the Air Force get priority over the marines in the air warfare game? I think the answer is pretty self explanatory, especially as the navy don't want the F35.
why pay more in the interest of "saving?"
like they did with the F22, B2, F117 etc?
At this point I would like to reiterate that, in the eyes of the US treasury, it's all about gross savings, not marginal savings.