Forget the $500 hammer. The newest report from the Government Accountability Office puts the cost of America’s ailing Lightning II F-35 joint strike fighter at an estimated $2 trillion.

Have all those zeros bought the American taxpayer an invincible flying machine?

No. The program is so crippled by cost overruns and delays that Snoopy and his doghouse seem more likely to get off the ground.

You might think the largest procurement program at the Department of Defense would also be the best run. Instead, the Lightning II, also called the F-35, remains one of the biggest embarrassments at the Pentagon.

Last week, Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida pressed the Air Force on the mission readiness of its latest and most capable strike fighter. (RELATED: Air Force Chief Admits To Matt Gaetz That Lockheed Martin Basically Controls F-35 Fighter Jet Program)

Gaetz’s line of questioning revealed that the full mission-capable rates for the F-35 range from an abysmal 14.9% to a likewise failing 36.4%. At best that means of America’s 630 F-35s, only 229 are fully ready to fight tonight.

Sadly, Gaetz follows in a long line of bipartisan shock from the Hill on the programs’ cost overruns and delays.

In 2014, the Pentagon’s then-Under Secretary for Acquisition Frank Kendall (now Secretary of the Air Force), called the Joint Strike Fighter program “acquisition malpractice.”

In........

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