Two-tenths of 1% of the budget

Sen Chris Dodd, D-Conn, supported building seven more F-22s. He questioned the fiscal restraint claims of opponents, noting the 95,000 jobs the Raptor preserves.

He also said this: “That’s two-tenths of 1 percent of the budget before us.” Dodd chairs the Senate banking committee.

The same article quotes retired Gen. Michael Dunn, president of the Air Force Association, as not convinced the F-22 is “necessarily dead.”

Dunn sees a parallel to the American experience with another costly weapon: the B-1 bomber. “There have been countless times when conventional wisdom said weapons were too expensive, but history proves those critics wrong,” Dunn said. “We’ve needed the B-1 many, many times since.”

Read the entire story here.