If you like that, my big budget cutting recommendation is to eliminate the F-35 program totally and reduce government spending by $1.2T over the next 20 years! We don't need them as they are not as good as the aircraft they are designed to replace: the F-16, the F/A-18, the AV-8 and A-10! Too slow, too heavy and more importantly too costly!
Bob, your assumptions are faulty. I am directly involved in testing the F-35, I am responsible for 4 of them assigned to Nellis and I've been involved in that program for a few years. While 'formal' operational testing is yet to come, I can tell you the early results are very promising. The Lightning is far superior to any aircraft it replaces, in any threat environment. Those aircraft/capabilities you would keep are too hard to sustain, too expensive, and rapidly falling behind in any advantages over potential adversaries. From the employment perspective, I don't you are familiar with countering the
PAK-FA, J-20, J-31, SU-35 or combating double digit SAMs.
BTW, you quote the cost figures for the entire program, to include the joint partner shared costs--not the US only costs. And, the cost per aircraft you quoted is the cost per aircraft right now. Those costs will come down with full production. I know the guy who wrote the last F-22 check for the USAF, and funny enough, that $300M aircraft only cost $92M. If we'd bought the number we truly needed, that cost would have come down into F-15 territory. And, the Raptor is so superior to the Eagle it isn't even funny--same analogy with the F-35 holds true.
Also, does your $1.2B cost to keep the A-10 account for the fuselage cracks seen just aft of the gun bay, new engines because of vanishing vendor problems (no one else uses the TF-34 in the military any more), replacing cracked gun mounts and addressing the myriad of other sustainment challenges looming on the A-10s horizon? Fact is that we've flown the snot out of that jet in the GWOT, it will not last forever, and it needs replacing. Doubt that? Come by Nellis and I'll show you an A-10 undergoing a Phase Inspection.
Keeping old iron around forever is just not viable or smart. If the airpower practitioners in the US military do not upgrade capabilities via the F-35, the advantages we regularly enjoy in that domain will disappear quickly, Americans in uniform will be put at risk and the recovery will take decades. And, that's a Airman's honest perspective from the middle of the issue, not a company one.