The Air Force portion of the Bush Administration’s 2008 budget—to be released today—compels an “unnecessary and unreasonable” decline in the Air Force into the future, a senior service official told reporters in a background briefing Friday. The Air Force plans to embark on a campaign to correct the situation, hoping to persuade both the Defense Department and Congress that it needs an extra $20 billion a year for the next 20 years. Without that additional funding, USAF will inexorably become “a smaller and less capable force,” the official said. (Read more about USAF budget woes below and In More Depth: “How to Break an Air Force.”)
The rate of building B-21 bombers would speed up if the fiscal 2026 defense budget passes. But it remains unclear how much capacity would be added, and whether the Air Force would simply build the bombers faster, or buy more.
