A Deficit Raptor Spends

It is unfair to call me a "deficit hawk." Hawks are too meek and mild to represent how I feel about the Federal deficit.


So I instead call myself a "deficit raptor," raptor being the term used to collectively describe ALL birds of prey, having been derived from the French word "rapere" meaning to seize or take by force. And while I would not take all of it ("it" being Federal spending), I would take a lot - by force if I had to.


And while I would not cut my 90-year-old aunt's Social Security payments if I thought it would lead to a balanced budget and elimination of the Federal deficit, I would have to think about it. (Don't worry, Aunt Anne, I am just trying to make a point. I still love you.)


But even Raptors are smart enough to leave some nibbles behind when eating them might endanger their very well being. 


Such is the case for protecting the F-35 Program and its thousand New Jersey jobs. And while I care about the 126,000 jobs in the 46 other states that the program provides for once, I have to be parochial. 


Federal budgets are about choices. So let's assume that even the grandest of deficit hawks - say a Paul Ryan - is going to fail to eliminate Federal spending in its entirety. Some things will stay and some will go. The F-35 should stay.


Unless you have been in a cave and have not read a newspaper in a few years and thus believe that peace is about to break out worldwide any second now, foregoing the need for a U.S. Military presence, we need the F-35. The program will deliver more than 2,400 aircraft for the United States and our allies. One only needs to look to Libya to understand the importance of air power to a successful military operation and foreign policy at a minimal cost in human life. And one only needs to look to Iraq to understand that Americans will no longer tolerate the sacrifice of its soldiers. Our current fleet of aircraft is older than at any other point in our history. We have to modernize.


So if the program protects us; saves lives AND happens to be beneficial to New Jersey also, well that is a formula that this deficit raptor can live with. And one around which our entire Congressional delegation should unite.