An Update From Congressman Bishop
Hello Friends. … it is the August recess, and there is much to relate (unfortunately mostly bad).
F-22: You may recall that last time I mentioned that the Obama Administration has proposed stopping production of the F-22 and capping them at 187 aircraft. We had a partial victory in the House with my amendment to maintain some funding for additional production down the line. Well, the battle isn’t over but we have had some setbacks – particularly in the Senate. I think part of it is due to inaccurate reporting or misinformation. I made the mistake of reading comment boards and blogs about the F-22. The spin is that this plane is an expensive Cold War relic unwanted by the military and only kept alive as pork projects. All of that spin is inaccurate crap, except the expensive part. The plane is expensive, but if you planned to build 750 planes and only sold 187, the cost per plane would skyrocket. Here is the bottom line – and I do hope you explain this to everyone you meet who still doesn’t get it. Obama and Defense Secretary Gates don’t want the plane. Anti-military liberals in Congress probably don’t want any planes. The Air Force wants and needs at least 243 F-22s. Thirty studies over 15 years defended the plane and that number. The retiring general over Air Combat Command not only defended the plane, but publicly contended the Air Force can’t meet its mission with only 187. The Air National Guard General wants more F-22s. Even the Air Force Chief of Staff testified in our committee that 187 planes is what he thought the budget could afford, not what the Air Force needed. All rational studies and knowledgeable experts agree that 243 is the absolute minimum of F-22s needed, and even that number keeps the U.S. in “Modest Risk” of losing air superiority. 381 planes keep us at air superiority status quo.
To keep the air superiority we gained at the expense of wealth and lives in the Korean War, we must have technological advantage and numerical advantage. The current fighter jets are great planes, but are over 30 years old. Third-world countries have caught up to our technology. The F-22 puts us ahead for decades, but we also need the numbers. Consider the following scenario. Russia plans to build a new generation of fighter and plans to build 200-300 more than they will keep. So they sell those to countries like Iran and Venezuela. At the same time new fighters are in the hands of antagonists on several continents, we halt the production of the F-22 at a level the Air Force Chief of Staff claimed was adequate for only ONE crisis, not multiple fronts. We also cut 250 current planes from the Air Force with no replacements. The F-35 (a good plane but designed as a complement to not a replacement for the F-22) will not be available until 2014 at the earliest. There are rumors the production may be delayed. Additionally, Secretary Gates has already said he desires to flatline future defense spending while cutting another $60 billion from current defense budgets over the next five years.
Cuts to the Air Force and missile defense – and promises of more of the same, made this a very depressing session. Please spread the word of how serious this situation is. The F-22 is needed by the military and without enough of them we are at risk. This continuous dismantling of our defense systems puts us at risk.
Health Care: The more one reads the bill, the greater the concerns. Let me give one simple illustration. I reviewed a section for a proposed committee amendment. I found that the proposed Health Commission, created so the federal government can choose which private insurance plans will be allowed to compete with the federal plan, also created the office of Ombudsman. The Ombudsman was to communicate with individual Americans about health care options in a “linguistically appropriate manner.” Ok, I give. What does that mean? Some faceless bureaucrat in DC decided to write a provision that sounded both politically correct and poetic. Unfortunately, the language needed to be legally understandable. Must the Ombudsman speak in technical terms to be accurate or lay term for comprehension. If I call and only speak Icelandic, can I sue if no one in the office can converse with me in my one and only appropriate linguistic option? Of course, the term is not defined in the bill and, like much Congress does, simply opens us up to lawsuits or empowers the Health Commissioner to make even more rules to govern us. The thousand-page bill is riddled with such quaint peculiarities.
I saw some numbers recently to keep in mind. When Medicare was instituted in the mid-60’s, it was projected to cost $3 billion by 1970 and $12 billion by 1990. It actually cost just under $7 billion in 1970 and $110 billion in 1990. The Democrat bill will pay for itself by creating system efficiencies??? The Medicare bill was to not “exercise any supervision or control over the practice of medicine or the manner in which medical services are provided.” With the history of Medicare, why would I not trust an all-powerful Health Commission in the Democrat bill?
Cap and Tax: Kimball Rasmussen of Deseret Power flew back to DC and gave brilliant testimony at a hearing I attended. He explained how the 6.2 million “green jobs” figure supposedly created by the Cap and Trade bill was calculated. If someone built a windmill for power this year in Wyoming – that was one green job. If next year, he built a windmill in Montana – that was a second green job. If the next year in Colorado…you get the picture. There are three types of green jobs: direct (about 1/3rd of the total) indirect and induced (about 2/3rd of the total). A direct job touches a green energy product. A trucker who delivers a part to a solar panel is engaged in a “direct” green job. A trucker delivering the same part to a coal fired plant is engaged in a gray job. If someone is working in a cement quarry and the cement is used for a windmill foundation, the cement worker is an “indirect” green job – even if he doesn’t know it and drove a Ford Explorer to work. If someone who works at a “green job” goes to a restaurant and orders a steak, the chef who prepares the steak is an “induced” green job. The cow who provided the steak is a green cow and the CO2 used to cook the steak is good green CO2. There were no offsets for job loss in other industries when computing the 6.2 million green jobs. The more accurate number for green jobs instituted with the passage of a Cap and Tax bill would be more like 125,000 at any given point in time.
The sloppiness, bad data and poor policy in Washington right now are frightening. Now you know why I am glad to be home and working in Utah in August. I obviously love it here in Utah, but the country is probably better off too when Congress isn’t in session!
-Rob
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