[Goose]

Sure, they may be destined soon for the boneyard, but all the other old stuff we've sent to Ukraine still gets billed at something like list price against the money allocated for aid to Ukraine.

If it's between F16s (100million+?) and Patriots (few million a piece), it will require a very large amount of support to make sending the jets worth it, the prospects for which look dim at the moment.

I understand your point. The difference is that in many cases the other "old stuff" (like ATACMS missiles) are still currently first-line defense articles and need to be replaced. The M777 howitzers were a different case and were at that time considered "surplus to requirements". While for bookkeeping purposes they may have been carried at "list price" or "replacement cost" we (at that time, maybe not today) had no intention of replacing them. The congress and the administration liked the "good publicity" of the big numbers while fully realizing the actual cost wasn't near that much. I would hope congress could be made to understand the same about F-16s that we are replacing with F-35s. It is not a "real" cash outlay. 

You could be correct that it isn't possible and that congress would balk. I perhaps am asking too much. However, we do give away ships that are (were when acquired) listed at multi-millions of dollars but are surplus to requirements. We are talking about giving away LCS that the USN paid over 500 million each. Nobody in congress worries about that much. It can be done if "explained" correctly.

[Goose]

Sure, they may be destined soon for the boneyard, but all the other old stuff we've sent to Ukraine still gets billed at something like list price against the money allocated for aid to Ukraine.

If it's between F16s (100million+?) and Patriots (few million a piece), it will require a very large amount of support to make sending the jets worth it, the prospects for which look dim at the moment.

I understand your point. The difference is that in many cases the other "old stuff" (like ATACMS missiles) are still currently first-line defense articles and need to be replaced. The M777 howitzers were a different case and were at that time considered "surplus to requirements". While for bookkeeping purposes they may have been carried at "list price" or "replacement cost" we (at that time, maybe not today) had no intention of replacing them. The congress and the administration liked the "good publicity" of the big numbers while fully realizing the actual cost wasn't near that much. I would hope congress could be made to understand the same about F-16s that we are replacing with F-35s. It is not a "real" cash outlay. 

You could be correct that it isn't possible and that congress would balk. I perhaps am asking too much. However, we do give away ships that are (were when acquired) listed at multi-millions of dollars but are surplus to requirements. We are talking about giving away LCS that the USN paid over 500 million each. Nobody in congress worries about that much. It can be done if "explained" correctly.