Barber caught off A-10 guard

A panic ensued on Thursday, when the A-10 community and its supporters discover that the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee did not include funding for the A-10 in draft legislation. The move mystified many due to the fact that earlier this month the full House had voted to fund the A-10 fleet for Fiscal Year 2015.

Arizona congressman Ron Barber was not alone in being completely caught off guard. Sources on the Hill and in the Air Force report that they were surprised by the stealth move.

On Thursday Barber released a statement that he was angry that the draft disregarded “the authorization to pay for the A-10 passed with overwhelming and bipartisan support last week.”

A-10 supporters are being asked to contact their representatives who serve on the House Appropriations Committee between now and June 6, and ask that they support an amendment to fully fund the A-10 in FY 2015.

One source says failure to add the amendment “will create a close air support capability gap that will put the lives of our ground troops at greater risk.”

“I watched this unfold on Thursday and am still in shock and disbelief,” said McSally’s Republican Primary challenger Chief Master Sergeant, USAF (Ret), Chuck Wooten. “The first thing I wondered was how could Congressman Barber lose support for his amendment that passed resoundingly? Then, I wondered, did he take his eye off the ball and declare victory too soon? It’s pretty clear he did just that.”

“We, out here in the A-10 “street fight” to keep the Warthog, have been vigilantly evangelizing to the public that even though Barber’s amendment passed and the Senate Armed Services Committee passed the NDAA with continued funding, the fight was far from over and we’d all need to prepare for a long, hard battle,” said Wooten. We never once took our eye off the ball or anything for granted. Hurdles were cleared, but they were only a couple of many in our complex legislative process. Heck, I understand that and I’m not even in Congress, yet. I’m deeply disappointed that Congressman Barber was taken by surprise.”

“I find it completely dumbfounding that with all the self-proclaimed, or perceived, political capital Martha McSally seems to think she has and with all the Washington establishment connections that have clamored over themselves to endorse and donate to her election, that none of them saw fit to inform the “anointed one” of something so drastic and critical to her district,” concluded Wooten. “Seems to me, that she should have seen this coming and informed those of us “un-elite” that this was coming and what we could do to fight back.”

According to sources, there will be no amendments today, May 30, during the Defense Subcommittee markup. The amendments would likely occur during the full committee markup of the defense appropriations bill.

The full committee markup has not been officially scheduled yet, but may occur the week of June 9.