Here’s what’s in the DoD Authorization bill: 1-point-7-5 billion dollars for seven new F-22 fighter jets. Which the Pentagon and President Obama say the country doesn’t need. A bipartisan amendment would have stripped the funding out. But Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) wants the money to stay in. And so far he’s winning. Chambliss says 95,000 jobs are at stake. Laura Peterson, a defense analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, says that number comes straight from lobbyists for Lockheed Martin. Defense contractors are smart enough to spread production facilities all over the U.S. "In the past the discussion was always about national security needs, "says Peterson. "There might have been a subtext of jobs but you really didn’t see members of Congress going to the floor and saying ‘We need to keep this weapons system because of jobs in my district. Period.’ You really hear that now.”
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