Originally Posted by
JessTD
tark no one is really arguing they dont need any planes, its merely they are trying to get more than the air force / pentagon says is even needed at a time when we are in serious budget crisis
you have things like social security on the verge of collapse ... instead of buying these extra planes why not write a check for 200 mil and put it in the social security fund ... if we only need 2 or 3 or 4 planes then get the bare minimum for now and use that extra money to take care of truly important issues.
Alot of the posts are saying that they should fly commerical. Now if you really want your politician like McCain to travel to
Libya, Kuwait, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and Iceland by commerical there is something wrong. First off i'm sure there is only a handfull of airlines that will fly to Afghanistan and i'm sure most of then even YOU would feel a little weird about flying.
Second The cost of upkeeping a old plane often surpases the cost of buying new ones. Espacially in the little business jets. The article does say that the fleet is aging and that some of the plane are actually grounded.
I think that there are other way of saving on this subject. I would certainly believe that buying the plane used a bit would save lots of money.