Senator Saxby Chambliss, a Republican from Georgia, got an amendment into the budget to buy seven more F-22s and keep the Marietta, Ga. production line open.
It suggested cancelling the STOVL version of the F-35 and cutting the rest of its order by half, while buying cheaper F-16s and F-18s to keep numbers up.
Fortunately, many of Charlie Wilson's successors on Capitol Hill have begun to engage on the question of whether to keep open the production line for the F-22.