F-22 Still Clings Tenaciously to Life?

The F-22 has a faint heartbeat in the House of Representatives, but appears to be a href="http://defensenews.com/story.php?i=4200849amp;c=AMEamp;s=TOP"slipping away:/abr /blockquoteThe committee voted July 22 to spend $369 million to buy another dozen F-22s, but Rep. David Obey, the committee chairman, said that has to change.br /br /In light of the Senate vote and a threat from the White House to veto any bill that contains money for new F-22s, Obey said House appropriators must "recognize that conditions have changed" on the F-22.br /br /Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said he tried to draft an amendment "to adjust for the F-22," but he "couldn't get it together fast enough" for the Appropriations Committee's 9 a.m. markup and vote.br /br /An aide said Murtha now plans to offer an amendment that would spend the $369 million on spare parts and engines for existing F-22s rather than on new ones, an aide said. The amendment would be proposed when the full House takes up the defense spending bill, probably July 30./blockquotebr /Two thoughts:br /olliIf Murtha is moving to the acceptance stage of grief, then the F-22 is pretty much done./liliGiven the fact that we actually do operate 187 F-22s, and that they apparently have ridiculously high maintenance costs, I'm curious about the spare part and engine proposal; does it simply accelerate already planned purchases? Or could it be a back door to further acquisition of new aircraft?/li/oldiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7163938-1443551471738242967?l=lefarkins.blogspot.com'//div