One outstanding issue is what to do about building a second engine for the Joint Strike Fighter.
But the idea of introducing a fifth engine for teams to use in the current season was rejected.
Hundreds of millions of dollars for an alternate second engine for the joint strike fighter when one reliable engine will do just fine.
Congress has financed the second engine for years to keep Pratt & Whitney from having a lucrative monopoly and as insurance against defects that might ground the fleet.
The 2010 military bill, for example, contained expenditures that the Pentagon did not want: $2.5 billion for C-17 transport planes; $825 million for all-terrain vehicles; $732 million for other planes, and $500 million for a second engine for the F-35 jet.
The party's fiscal hawks teamed up with Democrats, for example, to approve an amendment that would scrap a programme to develop a second engine for a military jet.Tim Geithner, the secretary of the treasury, said the cuts would "damage our capacity to create jobs and expand the economy".
By September another cable was reporting that the Dutch defence minister was concerned over the omission from the 2010 US defence budget of a second engine for the JSF (F-136), in which it said Dutch industry had "high value" contracts.
If Alonso has to take a sixth engine for the season he would incur a grid penalty but a Ferrari spokesman said that "at the moment that is not the plan".
Although the Sustainable Defense Taskforce that he chaired back in 2011 recommended more than $1 trillion in cuts over 10 years, Frank himself voted for Congress to contract with General Electric and Rolls Royce for a second engine for the already over-priced F-35.
However, while these officials are singing the right tune, a few of them (including Sarah Palin) have nevertheless continued to support programs the Pentagon does not want, such as the second engine for the F-35 program, which Gates has called "costly and unnecessary".
