Congressmen on Sunday morning passed the 2008 defense appropriations bill by a vote of 395 to 13, just squeezing it in before heading off for their August recess. The measure provides funding for 20 F-22 Raptors and 12 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters (six for USAF and six for the Marine Corps) and, as we noted earlier, restores health care funding to offset the Administration’s proposed Tricare fee hike for retirees. The Senate will take up the spending measure after the break.
A new Air Force plan for how many fighters it needs in the next decade marks a sharp upturn from what it thought it needed just seven years ago. But analysts worry that the aspirational plan now in Congress' hands doesn’t make a tight enough connection to national strategy.
