Hasn't this congressman heard about the Harrier jumpjet?

It is about time.

Thank you Democratic party.

This was 63 million dollars of squandered tax payer money, and it smacks of more of the buddy club mentality.
Do you really wonder why the infrastucture is falling apart?
We paid for this while Corporate like Blackstone get the big tax breaks!
WAKE UP AMERICA it's time for a new DEAL! IMPEACH THIS ADMINISTRATION or at least ask for your DAMNED money back!

For a $36K campaign contribution to Congressman Duncan Hunter's re election campaign by Anthony DuPont, the latter gets $63 million to develop an utterly useless gizmo.
I think this a fantastic ROI..I would go for it!!

So can we count on ABC News to call Rep. Hunter to the carpet?

Earmarks can be a good thing when used for maintaining bridges and promoting growth, but bridges to nowhere and planes that can't fly? These payoffs for campaign contributions are just more Republican corruption picking the taxpayers pocket. Enriching the wealthy and connected at our expense. Think tax and spend is bad? At least the bridges and levees weren’t falling down. How about tax and steal?

Impeach

I have a friend that builds planes, his fly. I wonder what he could do with 63 million of our tax dollars. Maybe, they should give him a call. Oh, he's a work with the rest of the overburden middleclass, take-at-advantage-us-smucks.

ABC news will handle this the same way they handled the DC Madam case- If you recall the big build up to releasing the phone records on their Prime Time show and then Brian Ross saying that no phone numbers of any prominent people were found- then low and behold, it turns out that a US Senator's phone number was in the records multiple times- I am sure that ABC will conduct a complete investigation and then give Duncan Hunter the same pass that they gave Senator Vitter! ABC is more concerned with appeasing congress due to their FCC license than they are with uncovering the truth!

Boy, talk about half-truths. The airplane mentioned by rep. Hunter that has the crash record has to be the Osprey; the only other VTOL aircraft in inventory (other than helicopters) is the Harrier, and it has a pretty good record. The military has shown that using VTOL aircraft (ie: Osprey) for airborne troop movement isn't safe. Helicopters have always worked. As far as fighters, Harriers have worked as a good battlefield platform for the U.S. Marines for the last twenty years, if not more; but, many of those airframes are at the end of their service life & need to be replaced. Why are we dumping $millions$ into a design that can't even fly, when we need to be building new ones (Harrier or Harrier variants) and/or rebuilding what we know works. That $65 mil. would by at least 2 new harriers, or 2 or 3 new Blackhawk helicopters.

I say we stick Hunter into that ridiculous airplane he keeps dumping money into and let him take it for a test flight. That'll change his mind real quick.

cpr

Guess no one bothered to check that the latest fighter, built around existing technologies, has some $40 BILLION developement cost. Only $63 mil for a totally radical design... seems like e bargain to me?

$63 mil for a plane that doesn't fly - doesn't anyone in Washington have a brain? That money would have been better spent to help people in New Orleans or people facing foreclosure of their homes. This administration needs to be impeached, hopefully the next person that gets into the White House has gotten their by the peoples vote - NOT by BUYING the state or votes! Word to the wise - NO MORE Bush’s in the White House - Middle class America (what little is left) can't afford it!!

All I have to say is everyone should watch the movie Pentagon Wars because this sounds like a repeat of that movie; except its a plane that only costs so far $63 million with an "M". (you will have to watch the movie to understand that part).

Oh C'mon only a 1/3 (33.3%) of these aircraft have crashed. What do you mean you don't want to pay for another 20 years of that kind of performance?

Heck I bet they could get the crash ratio down to 1 out of 4 by say 2027.

Yes..a boondoogle. What is incredible to me is that it was an earmark..other abuses of earmarks include the multimillion dollar bridge to no where cancelled after a Senator from Oklahoma exposed the project. Other boondoggles include hundreds of earmarks for local museums, study of sex lives of insects, an other stupid projects. Government should concentrate on Defense and Infrastructure, not extraneous pet projects.

"For a $36K campaign contribution to Congressman Duncan Hunter's re election campaign by Anthony DuPont, the latter gets $63 million to develop an utterly useless gizmo"

Once again we are reminded of the moral abyss that is the Republican party.

The morals of most the politians in either party should be questioned. Most politians seem to have their own agenda for their financial supporters and to h*** with the people they're supposed to represent. After all, its not actually their money that they are playing with, why not reward the ones that backed them financially.

More ABC news spin. What a shock! The article implies that only the Republicans are wasting taxpayer dollars for useless spending programs/money on earmarks and pork. You have got to be kidding me!!!! Worse yet, the lefty morons who frequent this site are buying the garbage you are spewing - hook, line and sinker.

Wake up maroons! THE EARMARK INSANITY IS A BIPARTISAN DISASTER!

The funny thing is they all do it. Not just the "neocons" but the bleeding heart "libs" too. Hell, now that they have congress they were suppose to make earmarks public record before they get passed.

What happened to that?

Oh yeah, they are all corrupt now that "they" have the power. Sorry politicians.

Last time I check NO was a liberal town. What happened to those tax dollars? Oh yeah, in his refrigerator...sold to special interest.