Politico reports:
The effort to strip $1.75 billion from the defense authorization bill to fund F-22 Raptors has stalled. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) has pulled the amendment he and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) co-sponsored that would have yanked funding for the controversial jet fighter, Levin’s office confirmed. The amendment was part of the fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill pending on the Senate floor. Despite pressure from the administration so great that it drew President Barack Obama’s first veto threat, it was unclear whether the amendment would pass, due to parochial concerns from a wide range of senators seeking to protect defense jobs in their home states.
Good news, for now. Levin and McCain will now have to go back and do some more arm-twisting before bringing this amendment back to the floor for a vote. Overall, the sense seems to be that the administration will ultimately prevail on this, but two months ago everyone thought the F-22 fight was over before it even started. Now the administration is making its last bid to kill the thing and can’t quite find the votes to do it. They may well get those votes, but it’s going to cost them.
