re: #37 Dave In Austin

The US Constitution requires all Federal funding to be authorised by bills from Congress. Stuff like defense spending gets tacked on to any bill going through the sausage-making process in the Capitol in the hope it will get passed. No biggie, the long-term plan is to fund the production of F-35 fighters in small batches like this over the next couple of decades and this bill was just a convenient bucket to put it in.