Pentagon mum after Musk calls its most expensive project ‘obsolete’

The Pentagon has about 630 F-35s. It plans to buy about 1,800 more. And it intends to use them through 2088. DOD estimates the F-35 program will cost over $2 trillion to buy, operate, and sustain over its lifetime.

Pentagon officials declined to comment on Elon Musk’s critical assessment of its most expensive project, the F-35 stealth fighter.

Tesla CEO and SpaceX leader Elon Musk called the Pentagon’s stealth fighter “obsolete.”

“The F-35 design was broken at the requirements level, because it was required to be too many things to too many people,” Musk wrote on X. “This made it an expensive & complex jack of all trades, master of none. Success was never in the set of possible outcomes. And manned fighter jets are obsolete in the age of drones anyway. Will just get pilots killed.”

In May, The U.S. Government Accountability Office found the cost of the Pentagon’s most expensive weapon system was projected to increase by more than 40% despite plans to use the stealth fighter less, in part because of reliability issues.

The U.S. Department of Defense’s F-35 Lightning II is the most advanced and costly weapon system in the U.S. arsenal. It’s a joint, multinational program that includes the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, seven international partners and foreign military sales customers.

The Pentagon has about 630 F-35s. It plans to buy about 1,800 more. And it intends to use them through 2088. DOD estimates the F-35 program will cost over $2 trillion to buy, operate, and sustain over its lifetime.

On Tuesday, a reporter asked Defense Department Press Secretary Air Force Major General Pat Ryder about Musk’s comments on the F-35.

“Yeah, as I’m sure you can appreciate, Mr. Musk is, currently, a private citizen, I’m not going to make any comments about what a private citizen may have to say about the F-35.”

The GAO report found the F-35 program fell short of its goals.

“The F-35 fleet is not meeting most of its performance goals, including those for availability and for reliability and maintainability, according to DOD and contractor data,” according to the report. “We have consistently found that the F-35 fleet is not meeting its availability goals, which are measured by mission capable rates despite increasing projected costs.”

President-elect Donald Trump recently picked Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy leaders of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

Trump said the new group will allow his administration to “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulation, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure federal agencies.”

Ramaswamy and Musk detailed some of their plans for DOGE last week. Those plans include a focus on military spending after the Pentagon failed another audit.

“The Pentagon recently failed its seventh consecutive audit, suggesting that the agency’s leadership has little idea how its annual budget of more than $800 billion is spent,” they wrote in an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal.

The U.S. Department of Defense’s annual audit once again resulted in a disclaimer opinion. That means the federal government’s largest agency — with a budget of more than $840 billion — can’t fully explain its spending. The disclaimer this year was expected. And it’s expected again next year. The Pentagon previously said it will be able to accurately account for its spending by 2027.

Brett Rowland

Investigative Reporter

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Trump Tells Supreme Court He Wants To Resolve Tik-Tok Controversy

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Alberta government must do more to avoid red ink

Business

Trump Tells Supreme Court He Wants To Resolve Tik-Tok Controversy

Published on December 28, 2024

Todayville

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Hailey Gomez

President-elect Donald Trump filed a brief Friday with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to block a law requiring that the social media platform TikTok either be sold or shut down by Jan. 19.

In April, President Joe Biden signed legislation allowing the ban of the Chinese-owned social media platform unless it is sold to a non-Chinese company within the year. Despite the company’s attempts to challenge the legislation as the shutdown date approaches, a panel of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled unanimously on Dec. 6 that the ban would be upheld, citing TikTok as a potential national security risk due to the Chinese government’s involvement with the app.

In his new filing, Trump argued against the ban, seeking to resolve the issue “through political means once he takes office.”

“President Trump alone possesses the consummate deal-making expertise, the electoral mandate and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the government — concerns which President Trump himself has acknowledged,” the brief said.

The Supreme Court on Dec. 18 agreed to hear TikTok’s challenge against the ban, with oral arguments set to begin Jan. 10. In its emergency application to the high court, the social media platform argued that the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which is the basis for the ban, will not only “shutter” the U.S.’s “most popular speech platform the day before a presidential inauguration,” but will also “silence the speech of Applicants and the many Americans who use the platform to communicate about politics, commerce, arts, and other matters of public concern.”

Despite attempts to ban the app through executive orders, Trump publicly opposed legislation targeting TikTok, stating that the move to ban the social media platform could potentially benefit Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook.

“If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business. I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!” Trump posted to Truth Social in March.

In addition to his request to handle the issue once in office on Jan. 20, the brief noted Trump’s large following on TikTok, arguing that it allows him to “actively” communicate with supporters.

“President Trump is one of the most powerful, prolific and influential users of social media in history,” the brief said. “Consistent with his commanding presence in this area, President Trump currently has 14.7 million followers on TikTok with whom he actively communicates, allowing him to evaluate TikTok’s importance as a unique medium for freedom of expression, including core political speech.”

TikTok additionally filed a brief Friday to the Supreme Court claiming the law being used to aid the ban was a violation of the First Amendment.

“The government has banned an extraordinary amount of speech; demands deference to unsubstantiated predictions a future risk will materialize; and gets facts wrong when it bothers to provide them,” the brief said.

“Congress’s unprecedented attempt to single out petitioners and bar them from operating one of the nation’s most significant speech venues is profoundly unconstitutional,” the brief continued.

Alberta

Alberta government must do more to avoid red ink

Published on December 27, 2024

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Tegan Hill

As Albertans look toward a new year, it’s worth reviewing the state of provincial finances. When delivering news last month of a projected $4.6 billion budget surplus for fiscal year 2024/25, the Smith government simultaneously warned Albertans that a budget deficit could be looming. Confused? A $4.6 billion budget surplus sounds like good news—but not when its on the back of historically high (and incredibly volatile) resource revenue.

In just the last 10 years, resource revenue, which includes oil and gas royalties, has ranged from a low of $3.4 billion in 2015/16 (inflation-adjusted) to a high of $26.1 billion in 2022/23. Inflation-adjusted resource revenue is projected to be relatively high in historical terms this fiscal year at $19.8 billion.

Resource revenue volatility is not in and of itself a problem. The problem is that provincial governments tend to increase spending when resource revenue is high, but do not similarly reduce spending when resource revenue declines.

Overall, in Alberta, a $1 increase in inflation-adjusted per-person resource revenue is associated with an estimated 56-cent increase in program spending the following fiscal year, but a decline in resource revenue is not similarly associated with a reduction in program spending. Over time, this pattern has contributed to historically high levels of government spending that exceed ongoing stable levels of government revenue.

And while the Smith government has shown some restraint, spending levels remain significantly higher than reliable ongoing levels of government revenue. Put simply, unpredictable resource revenue continues to help fund Alberta’s spending—and when resource revenues inevitably fall, Alberta is at high risk of plummeting into a deficit.

Indeed, Finance Minister Nate Horner continues to emphasize that we are “living in extremely volatile times” and warning that if oil prices fall below $70.00 per barrel a budget deficit is “very likely.” According to recent forecasts, the price of oil may hit $66.00 per barrel in 2025.

To avoid this fate, the Alberta government must do more to rein in spending. Fortunately, there’s plenty of options.

For example, the government spends billions in subsidies (a.k.a. corporate welfare) to select industries and businesses every year. A significant body of research shows these subsidies fail to generate widespread economic benefits. Eliminating this corporate welfare, which would generate significant savings in the budget, is a good place to start.

If the Smith government fails to rein in spending, and Alberta incurs a budget deficit, it will only mean more government debt on the backs of Albertans. And with Albertans already paying approximately $650 each in provincial government debt interest each year, that’s something Albertans simply can’t afford.

With a new year set to begin, the Smith government continues to warn of a budget deficit. But rather than simply prepare Albertans for more debt accumulation—financed by their tax dollars—the government should do more to avoid red ink. That means cutting wasteful government spending.