Finally, Senate votes to halt F-22 production

The F-22 has a lot going for it, including speed and maneuverability. But its greatest selling point in recent years has been its roominess: It's big enough to accommodate members of Congress from 44 states.

Despite appeals from the Pentagon to shift funding to other needs, lawmakers have long been reluctant to end production of the Cold War-era fighter jet because the lead contractor, Lockheed Martin, has spread the work into nearly every state in the union. A vote against the F-22 became a vote against one's own congressional district or state.

But last week - amid intense lobbying by the White House, blunt advice from the Pentagon and continued goading from Arizona's Sen. John McCain - the Senate voted to scrap plans to spend $1.75 billion to add seven more F-22s to the 187 already built or on order.

President Barack Obama had threatened to veto the defense spending bill if it included money for more F-22s.

The Senate's 58-to-40 vote was remarkable in many ways. It scrambled party lines into odd alliances. It also pitted labor unions against their usually reliable Democratic protectors and military contractors against their usually dependable Republican patrons.

Virginia's Mark Warner and Jim Webb voted against the expenditure, as did North Carolina's Kay Hagan. Richard Burr, North Carolina's other senator, voted for the additional jets.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, a holdover from the Bush administration, has asked Congress to reject more F-22s, saying the existing number is sufficient to deal with any potential threat. Gates and others at the Pentagon have been pushing for major changes in weapons procurement, pointing out that the F-22s were built with the Soviet threat in mind and have not been used in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

The money for the F-22s, Gates contends, would be put to better use on less expensive but more versatile F-35s, unmanned drone aircraft and other weaponry suited for the types of conflict in which the U.S. military is now engaged.

McCain, who made weapons procurement an issue in the presidential campaign, said the system is "out of control" and - expanding on a phrase made famous by Dwight D. Eisenhower - called last week's vote a triumph against the "military-industrial-congressional" complex.

The triumph isn't complete yet. On the House side, plans are still alive for $369 million for F-22 components. The Senate version is expected to prevail when the bills are reconciled, but there are already rumblings about reviving the issue later.

As difficult as it is to cast votes that may kill some jobs - Lockheed estimates nearly 100,000 people are directly and indirectly involved in production of F-22s - Congress must focus first on what the military needs to defeat al-Qaida, the Taliban and others hostile to our nation.

As Gates has said, "A dollar for something we don't need is a dollar taken away from something we do need."