Grover Norquist says cut defense

Save the Lightning

Thanks to the provisions of the Budget Control Act and the subsequent directions of President Obama’s budget director, Jack Lew, the Department of Defense is figuring out how to trim $1 trillion from its current and planned budgets. Perhaps the principal target in the sights is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program (aka the Lightning II)—a fact that neatly encapsulates the Pentagon’s severe budgetary, programmatic, operational, and strategic problems. It’s only modest hyperbole to conclude that as fares the Lightning, so fares America’s military power.

Thomas Donnelly proposes that we reduce the carrier fleet but keep the F-35, as near as I can tell. Good idea, mothball three or four carriers.