Welp, that didn’t take long.

The President’s Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2023 included a combined Navy/Marine Corps request for 28 F-35s in two different varieties: one that lands on an aircraft carrier and one that is a Short Take Off/Vertical Landing (STOVL). Through a quirk of squadron organization, the Marine Corps actually flies both of those versions while Navy squadrons fly only the carrier-based F-35C.

The President’s Budget Request was made public on Monday, March 28, 2022. But the Navy and Marine Corps’ so-called Unfunded Priorities Lists (UPLs), now required by statute (sigh), contradict the President’s request regarding F-35s.

According to the UPLs for both the Navy and the Marine Corps, the actual requirement for F-35s is a whopping 40 airframes with an eight additional carrier-based F-35Cs and four additional STOVL F-35Bs.

The Marine Corps UPL is dated March 28^th, same day as the President’s Budget Request. But in an impressive bit of time-travel (is that possible in an F-35?) the Navy’s UPL is dated March 24, 2022.

Everyone look at the calendar. That would be the Thursday before the budget was made public. In other words, budget documents don’t mean a thing when the military service chiefs, Combatant Commanders and every other person with a membership in the Pentagon Executive Mess can present an additional wish list to the Congress. Even before the President could present his budget, military leaders in the Navy and Marine Corps were preparing to say he was wrong.

Members of Congress brought this lack of budget discipline upon us all by requiring these wish lists in statutory language. But budget watchdogs despair the process.