Lockheed Martin on the F-22 Vote

I asked Rob Fuller, Lockheed Martin’s chief spokesman for the F-22 jet that it manufactures, what his reaction was to the Senate’s vote to strip funding for the F-22 from the defense authorization. And since the House’s companion bill has F-22 money in it, will Lockheed lobby to keep the funding in a conference bill? “We will support the U.S. Government’s final decision on the F-22 Program,” Fuller e-mailed.

Pretty noncommittal, as should be expected from a Lockheed employee here. But there’s not much to support the proposition that the F-22 can survive conference. Obama’s veto threat held. Rep. Jack Murtha’s (D-Pa.) prediction that President Obama would compromise didn’t. The Weekly Standard’s Michael Goldfarb quotes some anonymous F-22 advocate recognizing that the prospects for restoring the funding in conference are poor.  There shouldn’t be any preliminary end-zone dancing, but since Obama was able to overcome Senate objections to the funding cancellation, it’s hard to see how he would accept a conference bill that had F-22 money in it.

And it makes sense that Lockheed might play a stand-off role. First, it’s the primary contractor for the Joint Strike Fighter, which is Defense Secretary Bob Gates’ preferred alternative to the F-22. Second, given that Gates is proving able to get what he wants out of the defense budget, it doesn’t make any sense to fight a lost cause when there’s so much money still at stake.