After explaining a litany of modernization problems (read his written testimony) to the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said his service is “OK, for tonight and tomorrow.” However, what most worries him, he said, is that by about 2020 “we will have shut down every production line” except for the F-35 and the new KC-X tanker. “Is that what we want?” Wynne asked the committee. In his opening remarks, committee chairman Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) acknowledged that the savings USAF expected to achieve from its plan to cut 40,000 personnel have “been eaten up by operating costs” and have left the Air Force with “increasingly urgent” budget shortfalls. Wynne earlier this year likened the situation to a company that is “going out of business.”
Dick Cheney’s Legacy with the Air Force
Nov. 6, 2025
Dick Cheney, who died Nov. 3 at 84, is best remembered by most Americans as among the most powerful Vice Presidents in history, a consummate Washington insider who had previously served in the Nixon administration, was Chief of Staff for President Gerald Ford, a Congressman for a decade, and Secretary…
