Last week, over the objections of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the Obama administration, the House Armed Services Committee restored funding for the basically useless F-22 fighter jet, in the process stripping funding for nuclear waste cleanup efforts. Last night, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) filed an amendment to restore the waste cleanup funds and eliminate the money for the F-22. The move came after months of Republicans issuing dire warnings about the consequences of suspending the F-22 program: Frank Gaffney, for example, declared it would lead to “diminished military capability, emboldening enemies, and alienating our friends.”

On a press call hosted by the Center for American Progress Action Fund this afternoon, Frank pointed out Republicans’ hypocrisy in railing against the deficit while simultaneously funding a $2 billion air force jet that has never once flown a mission in Afghanistan or Iraq. Frank said so-called deficit hawks act as though the Pentagon is funded with “Monopoly money”:

I am of course struck that so many of my colleagues who are so worried about the deficit apparently think the Pentagon is funded with Monopoly money that somehow doesn’t count.

Frank also dismissed concerns that eliminating the F-22 will cost jobs:

These arguments will come from the very people who denied that the economic recovery plan created any jobs. We have a very odd economic philosophy in Washington: It’s called weaponized Keynesianism. It is the view that the government does not create jobs when it funds the building of bridges or important research or retrains workers, but when it builds airplanes that are never going to be used in combat, that is of course economic salvation.

Listen to it:

Indeed, conservatives declare that canceling the F-22 would result in thousands of lost jobs. However, as Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Lawrence Korb pointed out on the call, the administration has also ramped up production of the F-35, which is produced at many of the same facilities — and by the same workers — as the F-22.

Frank called the F-22 fight an important “test” for the Obama administration’s efforts to cut wasteful military spending. “If we cannot hold the line on this, then it’s very bad news for trying to hold down any kind of excesses in military spending,” he said.

Yesterday, Media Matters highlighted statements made by “shock-jock” radio host Michael Savage on his Friday show in which he lashed out at immigrant “gang-bangers” for “destroying California.” Savage, whose inflammatory rhetoric recently got him banned from entering the U.K., vowed that only God himself will shut him up:

SAVAGE: The illegals [immigrants] have destroyed the state of California. They’ve sucked it dry like lemons. They’ve sucked it dry. Free medical, free schooling, knocking out babies like tasty bread. What do you want me to say it’s not true? What do you think I’m blind? You think they’re going to reign me in? You think those people on the left are going to scare me into not telling you what’s real? I’m never going to stop. God will stop me, not you. Go walk around and see who’s having the babies in the state of California–14 year-old-gang-banger children are knocking them out like tasty bread.

Savage proceeded to victimize California white males for carrying the economic burden of the state:

SAVAGE: Go blame everybody. Go blame the white male who makes the money in the state. Blame the white male who makes all the money in the state for bankrupting the state. Go ahead.

Listen:

California’s budget crisis is no white man’s burden and white males certainly aren’t the only individuals contributing to the state economy. Immigrants have been called the “super-stars” of California’s profitable high-tech industry. Google, Ebay, and Intel were all started by California’s immigrants.

And while Savage might like to think that most of California’s immigrant population is busy robbing grandmas and pushing baby carriages all day long, immigrants — both legal and illegal — make up more than 1/3 of California’s labor force. In fact, according to economist Giovanni Peri of the University of California, immigrant workers complement native-born California workers and most native-born Californians have experienced wage gains as a result. While there is a cost associated with immigrants and their children — as there is with any individual who lives and goes to school in the United States — California’s immigrants pay roughly $30 billion in federal taxes, $5.2 billion in state income taxes, and $4.6 billion in sales taxes each year.

Most sources attribute California’s budget shortfall to the state’s long-term investment projects that rely heavily on income taxes during a time of high unemployment and the state’s inability to pass workable solutions due to the political stalemate caused by the complicated state legislative system.