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I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO's) analysis of tactical aircraft plans for the Department of Defense (DoD). Last June, I testified before the Subcommittees on the same topic. At that time, I made the following points:

• U.S. fighter fleets now outmatch the fighter fleets of any potential adversary;
  
  
• DoD plans to purchase enough tactical aircraft to meet the inventory requirements of its fleets through 2020;
  
  
• DoD's plans assume that tactical aircraft will operate for long periods, and as a result, U.S. tactical aircraft fleets will reach unprecedented ages; and
  
  
• DoD's planned aircraft purchases for fighter fleets will be difficult to afford.

I suggested then that the Department of Defense and the Congress might wish to consider policy alternatives to address those last two points.

Last month, we released a study requested by Mr. Weldon and Mr. Spratt titled Look at Tomorrow's Tactical Air Forces. That study, available from CBO, provides a considerably more detailed look at tactical forces than can be covered in testimony. In addition to verifying the points we raised in our preliminary analysis, it lays out specific alternatives that illustrate the hard choices that DoD might have to make if current plans for tactical aviation prove to be unaffordable. After a short discussion of the other main points of our study, I would like to focus my remarks today on the issue of affordability and on alternatives that illustrate approaches to reducing spending.

This document is available in its entirety in PDF.