One reporter called it a “bombshell” in a still-ongoing press briefing. But Gates canceled the Air Force’s F-22 fighter jet in favor of making the JSF the replacement jet, as, among other reasons, it’s operable across both the Navy and the Air Force. But defense reformers have pointed to the JSF’s ballooning costs as similarly problematic. Gates just said that the program’s coming under fiscal control. But he said he couldn’t put the program back in order “without people being held accountable.” So says a defense secretary who two years ago fired the entire leadership of the Air Force over a nuclear weapons mishap. If there’s a theme to Gates’ tenure at the Pentagon, he said, it’s that “when things go wrong, people will be held accountable.”

Unless I misunderstood Gates, Heinz’s deputy, Air Force Maj. Gen. C.D. Moore, will head up the F-35 program office for the time being.

Update, 1:49 p.m.: I think I did misunderstand Gates. Pressed on who takes over the program, Gates demurred, saying an announcement is forthcoming.

Update 2, 1:55 p.m.: Don’t miss Noah Shachtman’s detailed post on Gates’ JSF bombshell.

Despite the need to move men and material by air into theaters like Afghanistan, the Obama Administration sought to end production of our C-17s, the work horse of our ability to project long range power. Despite the Air Force saying it would increase future risk, the Obama Administration successfully sought to end F-22 production – at a time when both Russia and China are acquiring large numbers of next generation fighter aircraft. It strikes me as odd that Defense Secretary Gates is the only member of the Cabinet to be tasked with tightening his belt.

The canceling of the F-22 was a minority position within the GOP, but it was supported by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), and it’s tough to find actual defense experts who disagree.

The central problem in health-care reform is that good policy and good politics point in opposite directions. Good policy proceeds from the understanding that our health-care system is a fractured, pricey, inefficient mess. Good politics, however, proceeds from the insight that a lot of people rely on this fractured, pricey, inefficient mess and don’t trust Washington to change it. Good politics means, as Barack Obama frequently says, that if you like what you have, you get to keep it. But put those imperatives together and you have a strange problem indeed: How do you reform a system that you’re not allowed to change?

It’s an argument that’s perfectly applicable to almost every reform effort lawmakers tackle. That is, even if some industry, or project, or siphon of federal spending is utterly frivolous — even if it’s utterly pernicious — it’s still likely that livelihoods depend on it, and therefore someone in Congress is going to defend it. (For recent examples, look no further than the F-22 fighter jet, or the presidential helicopter, or the push to force the automakers to keep dealerships around even if they’re not selling cars).

Still, the medical industry presents a special case, if only because it’s so enormous (projected to hit $2.6 trillion this year) and because it’s had so many decades to become entrenched. Indeed, any reform efforts will have to receive at least the partial blessing of the nation’s doctors, nurses, hospitals, drug makers, insurers, medical device makers, clinical labs, nursing homes, pharmacists and home-care specialists — not to mention the patient advocates and state governors.

And while the effects of canceling the presidential helicopter are limited largely to one district in New York, every lawmaker in the country has the pressure to keep doctors, hospitals and patients happy. In light of all of this, the wonder is not that the Democrats have been forced to delay their health reform votes, it’s that they’ve been able to get as far as they have.

The Administration strongly objects to $369 million in unrequested advanced procurement funding provided for 12 F-22 fighter aircraft in FY 2011, rather than ending the production program as requested by the President. The collective judgment of the Service Chiefs and Secretaries of the military departments has determined that 187 F-22s are sufficient to meet operational requirements. Consistent with the President’s letter to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee on July 13, 2009, concerning the National Defense Authorization Act, if the final bill presented to him contains this provision, the President will veto it.

The White House underlined that in the original because it’s really ticked off.

[Defense Secretary Robert Gates] bluntly warned Lockheed Martin that he would slice funding for the more modern F-35 jet if the contracting giant lobbied to build more F-22s. Lockheed Martin’s chief executive, Robert J. Stevens, told employees he supported Gates’s call “to put the interests of the United States first — above the interests of agencies, services and contractors.” That left the powerful lobbyists to sit on their hands.

And who makes the F-35?

Usually state delegations voted in lockstep — a predictable consequence of the plane being constructed in nearly every state in the country — but when they didn’t, a Democrat voted to stop funding and a Republican voted to keep it. There are three exceptions there. In Alabama, Sen. Richard Shelby voted against the plane and Sen. Jeff Sessions voted for it; both are Republicans. Similarly, in Oklahoma, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) voted against the plane while Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) voted for it. And in New Hampshire. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) voted for the plane but her Republican colleague, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), voted against it.

The 91-year-old, along with 39 others, lost the vote. But in a statement issued by his office, he said it was “wonderful to be back.”

Of note, Byrd’s presence must have been a reassuring sight for Democratic leaders, who have a tough health care fight ahead of them this year. The final Senate bill has yet to be finalized, but there aren’t too many people in town who think the vote will be anything other than excruciatingly close.

Byrd’s statement says the senator is “expected to ease back into his duties,” with an eye on controversial votes like that on health reform and climate change.

Today’s vote is a significant victory for our men and women in uniform, for the taxpayers and for reforming the way we do business in Washington. The Senate faced a simple question today: If not now, when? When would we end a weapons program, if not now, with the civilian and uniformed leadership of the Pentagon asking us to do so? Many members are concerned about the job losses that will result in this decision. Believe me, I know firsthand the pain such job losses can bring. But we need to invest in weapons systems that are needed. That members of both parties voted to end this program is an important step toward reforming our defense budget.

Good for Levin for confronting the jobs issue head-on.

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.

I want to say a few words about a very important vote that just took place in Congress.

Long before I took this office, I argued that meeting our greatest challenges would require not only changing policies in Washington, but changing the way we do business in Washington. I also promised that part of that change would be eliminating waste and inefficiency in our defense projects — reform that will better protect our nation, better protect our troops, and save taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.

As Commander-in-Chief, I will do whatever it takes to defend the American people, which is why we’ve increased our funding for our military, and why we will always give our men and women in uniform the equipment and support that they need to get the job done.

But I reject the notion that we have to waste billions of taxpayer dollars on outdated and unnecessary defense projects to keep this nation secure. That’s why I’ve taken steps to greatly reduce no-bid defense contracts. That’s why I’ve signed overwhelmingly bipartisan legislation to limit cost overruns on weapons systems before they spiral out of control. And that’s why I’m grateful that the Senate just voted against an additional $1.75 billion to buy F-22 fighter jets that military experts and members of both parties say we do not need.

At a time when we’re fighting two wars and facing a serious deficit, this would have been an inexcusable waste of money. Every dollar of waste in our defense budget is a dollar we can’t spend to support our troops, or prepare for future threats, or protect the American people. Our budget is a zero-sum game, and if more money goes to F-22s, it is our troops and citizens who lose.

So I want to thank Secretary Gates for his outspoken leadership on this issue. I want to thank every member of Congress who put politics aside to do what’s right for the American military and the American taxpayers. And I particularly want to thank Senators Levin and McCain for helping to make this happen.

Notice President Obama makes a point that some advocates of the F-22 just don’t concede: that the defense budget is somehow different from the non-defense budget. That money spent on a defense program or weapons platform isn’t money that doesn’t get spent on some other priority, and certainly isn’t money that doesn’t get spent on a different defense priority. According to the opposing argument, the right response to a budget that can either pay for an outmoded defense platform or the more immediate needs of defense is to add enough money into the defense budget so that you never have to choose.

Obama rejects that reasoning. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) rejects that reasoning. Defense Secretary Bob Gates rejects that reasoning. But more important than any argument from authority is the recognition that defense spending ought to follow a basic calculation of what threats the country faces, and what’s necessary to deter and defeat those threats. The fiscal 2010 defense budget is not a totally zero-sum budget. The Air Force will still have lots of fighter jets after Obama finally signs it into law. There is not and never has been an argument that prioritizing the Iraq and Afghanistan wars means the end of preparation against other, less mature threats. What it does is rebalance those priorities and slough off some of the dead weight. The rebalancing debate goes next to the Quadrennial Defense Review, which Pentagon officials have said for months will guide the next round of defense budgeting.

To a great degree, this debate itself is a zero-sum proposition. Either you recognize that money for defense is finite or you don’t. There’s always going to be a debate, as there should, about what overall priorities need to shape budgeting, and what defense priorities ought to shape defense budgeting. But there needs to be a recognition that the budget is, simply, limited.