Last Thursday, the government’s new fiscal year began—with no defense budget. The C-17 Challengers, this time led by Republican Senator John Mccain, came out swinging, but the Defenders of the heavy airlift military planes, through up a good block, and the Challengers lost yet another round in this continuing budget match up. It has been reported that Mccain will try again to kill the C-17 this Tuesday.

In the same week C-17s were flying humanitarian relief supplies and people to American Samoa, and delivering the first up-armored army vehicles specially designed for Afghanistan, Senator John Mccain offered an amendment to the Senate’s version of the fiscal 2010 defense budget which would end C-17 production. But, the effort was voted down by the full Senate 64 to 34. Mccain will reportedly try his amendment again on Tuesday, but without a veto threat from the White House, it seems unlikely a large number of Senators will switch their vote.

While the Obama Administration is undoubtedly working the issue behind the scenes, they are remaining quiet about any potential defense budget veto due to inclusion of unwanted C-17s. Actually, they seem to be doing just the opposite. On the very same day the Senate was voting to support more C-17s and Senator Mccain was railing against more of the big planes, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell was singing praises about the planes at his news conference. He said, in his opening remarks, and not in response to any questions, “I'm very pleased to report that the first seven M-ATVs, the all- terrain version of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) Vehicles, will be arriving in Afghanistan overnight. That is really an extraordinary achievement considering that the contract for production of these highly maneuverable armored trucks was awarded to the Oshkosh Corporation just three months ago.
Yesterday, three M-ATVs were loaded onto a C-17 and four onto a C-5 at the Charleston Air Force Base and flown to Afghanistan. That is just the first wave of a massive production and transportation program that will see at least 6,644 of these life-saving vehicles delivered to our forces in Afghanistan over the next year or so, making it one of the fastest and highest-priority acquisition programs in the history of the Defense Department.” No veto talk from Mr. Morrell.

And, by way of follow-up, when the new trucks arrived, there was the Air Force Times to cover it. The AFT reported “The M-ATVs, which support small-unit combat operations in rural, mountainous and urban environments, are the first to arrive in Afghanistan. Three hundred to 500 M-ATVs are expected to be airlifted there each month through December.” At a rate of 3 trucks per flight, that’s a lot of c-17 trips.

We cannot see a change from the Senate on C-17 funding this week and continue to expect approval of the existing Senate bill complete with its 10 additional C-17s. Although generally not reported in the mainstream pres, consistent readers of these pages will recognize our expectations. Without a strong veto threat from the Obama Administration, we see no reason not to expect passage of the Senate bill. Since there has not been any sign of a veto thus far, while there has clearly been a veto threat on other program differences, we do not think there is any reason to expect a last minute veto threat to suddenly appear. If that was the Administration’s plan, it seems unlikely that the Pentagon would choose the very day McCain’s measure was voted down, as the time to trumpet the C-17. United Press International last week reported the same message. UPI reported the inconsistency between the veto threatened F-22 advanced fighter, and the lack of a veto threat on the C-17, both programs the Administration wants to end.