The day before “Tax Day” the Government Accountability Office issued a riveting (if you’re into this kind of thing like we are) new study on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The subtitle of the report says it all, “Assessment Needed to Address Affordability Challenges.”

We’ve been writing and talking about the ever-increasing costs of the F-35 for quite a while now. And we believe it is, frankly, unaffordable. But you don’t have to just take it from us. From yesterday’s report:

“Cost and affordability challenges remain. DOD plans to significantly increase annual F-35 funding from around $8 billion to nearly $12 billion over the next 5 years…reaching $14 billion in 2022 and remaining between $14 and $15 billion for nearly a decade. Over the last year, DOD reduced near-term aircraft procurement by 4 aircraft, largely due to budget constraints. While these deferrals may lower annual near-term funding needs, they will likely increase the cost of aircraft procured in that time frame and may increase funding liability in the future. It is unlikely the program will be able to sustain such a high level of annual funding and if required funding levels are not reached, the program's procurement plan may not be affordable. DOD policy requires affordability analyses to inform long-term investment decisions. The consistent changes in F-35 procurement plans indicate that DOD's prior analyses did not adequately account for future technical and funding uncertainty.” (Emphasis added.)

As noted above by the GAO, the current funding request for the F-35 is about $8 billion across all three of the services that are on the hook to fly it (Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps.) As we wrote when the FY16 President’s Budget Request first came out, “Fully 36% of all ‘investments in future capabilities’ in aircraft programs is being sunk into the F-35 program. Further evidence the Pentagon is putting all its future aviation eggs into one, unaffordable, basket.”

But it’s the Air Force that is going “all in”, pushing all its chips to the middle of the table, to buy the F-35. Fully 100% of the Air Force FY16 request for “Combat Aircraft” is for the F-35.

So, on the day when many Americans are writing checks made out to “United States Treasury” we should all give some thought to how much of that check we want spent on this one airframe.