By S. Michael Shivers, Cap Times letter to the editor, Jan. 12, 2018
Dear Editor: Having known for months that the supersonic F-35 jet was proposed to be based at Truax Field in Madison, I am amazed that no elected politicians have spoken out in opposition to this outrageous waste of taxpayers’ money! Even President Trump called this airplane “a waste of money,” and I usually don’t believe anything he says. Retired jet pilots I have known have said that this plane, with its $150 million price tag, say it is “a piece of junk” that would take four to six hours of ground maintenance for each hour of flight in its routine use. A price tag of $2.7 billion for the 18 planes is too much, when most of us know that our next global war will mostly be a nuclear one, and not one of “air superiority.”
Why not take the cost of about half of these planes and use it for health care for the deprived, or housing for the less fortunate, and of course, let’s not forget our veterans. Back in the “old days” when I served for 20 years as a Madison alderman, there were many great liberal alders, including our present Mayor Soglin, who I think would have been very opposed to this waste then. Where are these liberals now?
See original letter here.
