Phil Gingrey: “the future of the F-22 will be decided in the coming weeks by the Obama administration. Congress has spoken. The…”

“the future of the F-22 will be decided in the coming weeks by the Obama administration. Congress has spoken. The National Defense Authorization Act of fiscal year 2009 passed by Congress and signed by the President contained the funds necessary to continue with F-22 production. However, only a small portion of those funds have been obligated, and thus far, a go/no-go decision on the rest of the funds must be made immediately or the production line will begin shutting down. For the sake of our Nation's air superiority, we must not let this happen. The Air Force is still nearly 200 F-22s short of its stated requirement, a fact that we must not overlook as Russia and China develop Raptor-like technology. Moreover, over 100,000 jobs in our Nation are directly or indirectly tied to this program. For these reasons, nearly 100 of our colleagues have joined Representatives Kay Granger, Norman Dicks, David Scott, and myself in a bipartisan letter to President-elect Obama encouraging continued F-22 production. I encourage all Members to show their support for the continued United States air dominance and keeping the F-22 production line open.”