Contact: Beth Daley or Eric Miller at defense@pogo.org or (202) 347-1122

A diverse bi-partisan group of taxpayer and military watchdogs called on the White House to shut down the F/A-22 jet fighter program, continued concerns about costs and reliability documented by the General Accounting Office (GAO). The span of interests represented by the groups demonstrates a growing sentiment that the F/A-22 program is too expensive at a time when of rapidly escalating budget deficits.

According to the letter: "The F/A-22 program was originally developed to fight a threat that no longer exists. We believe the F/A-22 is a bad buy for the taxpayers and not being developed in the best interest of U.S. fighting men and women."

The groups signing the letter are: Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, National Taxpayers Union, Project On Government Oversight, and Taxpayers for Common Sense.

The new GAO report released today documents that the Air Force will only be able to purchase 218 aircraft, down from the previous estimate of 276. This would put the per unit purchase price of the F/A-22 at $329 million, according to calculations by the Project On Government Oversight. However, this assumes there will be no more funding increases to the program. In April, 2003 the GAO had testified that per unit costs of the F/A-22 were $257 million.

A document recently leaked showed that the White House had instructed the Pentagon to conduct a review of the F/A-22 and the Comanche helicopter (a copy can be viewed at http://www.pogo.org/m/dp/dp-ombfa22-2004.pdf). On February 23, the Army announced that the Comanche helicopter was cancelled.

For More Information Contact:

Beth Daley, Project On Government Oversight (202) 347-1122 beth@pogo.org

Pete Sepp, National Taxpayers Union (703) 683-5700 pressguy@ntu.org

Keith Ashdown, Taxpayers for Common Sense (202) 546-8500 keith@taxpayer.net

Chris Hellman, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation (202) 546-0795 Ext. 197 chellman@armscontrolcenter.org

Resources:

POGO's F/A-22 Fighting with Failures Fact Sheet, March 15, 2004

"Secure Economic Growth Tomorrow by Freezing the Budget Today," National Taxpayers Union, March 9, 2004

POGO investigates, exposes, and seeks to remedy systemic abuses of power, mismanagement, and subservience by the federal government to powerful special interests. Founded in 1981, POGO is a politically-independent, nonprofit watchdog that strives to promote a government that is accountable to the citizenry.

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