The Job Loss Caused by John McCain
US workers, when you lie awake at 3 a.m. and without a job, who do you want to answer the call as President. Not John McCain. He evidently helped Airbus get that $35BB Air Force contract, which means lost jobs in the US economy.
Richard wrote about the contract Boeing lost the other day to Airbus, both here and here. Seems the Air Force wanted some more tankers, and despite Airbus’ subsidy from the governments in Europe, the Pentagon decided to give them the contract. Nancy Pelosi is supposedly pissed, though I’ve lost faith in her doing anything about it. Well, I want to hear from the straight talker. He’s all about free and fair trade, and, given the subsidies that are going to Airbus, this is not free trade. Of course, it appears now that John McCain is in part to blame for this loss of many, many high-paying jobs in WA state. From the Seattle Pilot:
Supporters of The Boeing Co. blame Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, for the company’s failure to win the lucrative $35 billion contract to build new Air Force aerial refueling tankers.
The Air Force last week awarded the contract to a team of Airbus parent EADS and Northrop Grumman Corp., triggering a firestorm from Boeing advocates who said the victory by the European-led consortium ignored American national security interests and would cost U.S. jobs.
Boeing advocates say McCain was a major force behind the Air Force decision to ignore the issue of government subsidies to Airbus when the tanker contract was put up for competitive bidding last year.
. . .
“The only reason that (Airbus) could even bid a low price is because they receive a subsidy,” said Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., whose Seattle-area district includes thousands of Boeing workers. “Senator McCain jumped into this and said that they (the Air Force) could not look at the subsidy issue, which I think is a big mistake,” he told PBS.
Rahm Emmanuel and Nancy Pelosi are blaming McCain as well, and they’re quoted in the article, too. But I think we should focus on campaign contributions, since John McCain has set himself up as holier-than-thou on the subject. Let the straight talker also address the campaign contributions he has received from EADS (Airbus) in his march towards the Presidential nomination.
McCain himself has received support from the EADS North America executive suite. He has received more than $12,000 in campaign donations from some of the company’s top U.S. officials, support that continued even as his presidential campaign was foundering in mid- to late 2007.
McCain’s donors include EADS North America Chief Executive Officer Ralph Crosby and Senior Vice President of Government Relations Samuel Adcock.
Will John McCain claim he never slept with Airbus officials? I don’t care much about that issue. John McCain can sleep with whomever he pleases. Indeed, though, nobody is accusing John McCain with sleeping with anyone here. He’s being accused of direct involvement in the loss of thousands of US jobs, direct involvement in the largest incident of outsourcing of the last dozen years and more. Hey, a $35BB contract went overseas, evidently via the influence of John McCain, and I want some straight talk from the man. Is anyone in the media awake?
US workers, when you lie awake at 3 a.m. and without a job, who do you want to answer the call as President? Let’s hope you don’t have John McCain in the White House.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_02/013230.php
As always Steve, you don’t know the facts and/or you’ld rather run your mouth just to see yourself spin;
Boeing was trying to sell an outdated tanker while the Los Angeles based Northrop Grumman will build the tanker here;
“The EADS-Northrop tanker, based on the Airbus A330, will be built in Mobile, Ala., where it will produce 2,000 new jobs, and support 25,000 jobs at suppliers nationwide.”
http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzgrum0309,0,172237.story
Therefore once again Steve, you prove yourself full of it and on top of that you’ve made me defend Juan McCain which REALLY pisses me off.
Winghunter, Steven is not incorrect. A majority of the EADS bid work will be done in Europe and sent to the U.S. for final assembly in a plant that does not yet exist in Mobile, Al. They are projecting possibly 2500 non-union jobs would be created. And a vast majority of the $35BB spent will go offshore.
Boeing’s bid on a 767 frame apparently did not meet spec, however, every government bid allows for exceptions, conferences, and reconciliation of the exceptions prior to bid award. And Boeing has already said that they would have come back with a 777 frame based bid had that exception been flagged.
Lastly, referencing a Newsday article is not exactly leading us to an unbiased source. The most balanced piece that I’ve seen written on the topic has been a WaPo article I linked to in one of my earlier articles on the topic. And yes, McCain did have a very heavy hand in the award process.
Then, OBVIOUSLY, Boeing should have bid the 777 frame to begin with and they would have received the contract but, what they tried to do instead was sell us an outdated product for a premium price…as usual.
I’VE HAD IT WITH $2,000.- HAMMERS and you sure as hell should be also!
AND you’re attempting to offer that WaPo is an “unbiased” source?? They drool the same line as the NY Times.
However, you don’t have to tell me about McCain being heavy-handed;
“John McCain is the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, so our friend works directly with McCain’s staff on a regular basis. I can’t really share any details, but his experience has been that McCain staffers are habitually heavy handed and abusive, using threats and intimidations to get what they want with complete and utter disregard and disrespect for people to the extent that it would make it very difficult to feel good about a McCain presidency. Maybe that’s how people get things done on Capital Hill, but that’s not the kind of leadership that I want to support.”
John “Juan” McCain
http://juanmccain.blogspot.com/
Winghunter, I’ll stand by Richard on this one. I’m wondering where you get your talking points, because, frankly, I didn’t think the Republicans had developed many thus far on this issue. The echo chamber was empty last I looked, but maybe you are in the Vanguard.
Unlike you Steve I don’t ever look to the “echo chamber” where you apparently have taken up permanent residence and obviously, wouldn’t dare move from it without permission from your mindless mentors.
Have you seen this quote yet?
“At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill disciplined, despotic, and useless. Liberalism is the philosophy of sniveling brats.” - P.J. O’Rourke
with the 787 slipping daily, falling further behind schedule, the air force looked at this and said we want new tankers on time, and thus boeing has eliminated themselves from consideration. boeing should thank the air force for this as they need to focus ALL of their energies on the 787 or they will REALLY be in a world of hurt. that and the gains made against airbus due to the a380 delays will all be lost.
Why isn’t the media picking up on McCain’s amendment back in 2003 that took away the prefernentional treatment of American companies regarding military contracts? Or perhaps the Democratic Party of Kansas is way off base.
From their website:
n 2003, Sen. McCain authored an amendment undermining “Buy American” rules requiring U.S. military equipment, defense systems and components to be manufactured in the United States. By allowing the Department of Defense to purchase American military equipment from foreign companies, the McCain amendment laid the groundwork for the Air Force’s decision to outsource the production of refueling tankers for the American military. The amendment passed along party lines with Kansas Senators Roberts and Brownback voting in its favor. [Vote 191, 5/21/03]
Link is: http://www.ksdp.org/node/3968
My guess the outsourcing of military equipment is still going on. I di know that you can buy Milspec 5.56 ammo that was made in Bosnia. Is that where the ammo that is issued to the troops in the field coming from?
Greatdog;
When American corporations work with unions to provide the best possible product to our country and our military in harmsway instead of the most lucrative combination of an inferior product with the longest man-hours billable THEN they will rightfully have earned the U.S. citizen’s business.
Winghunter, perhaps you are missing my point. I hear all the outrage against the Air Force for awarding the contract to Airbus, but no one mentions the issue of McCain’s amendment. IMO, the Air Force was just following the rules. If Airbus was cheaper, then that’s who they go with. It’s been a long time since my training in the military contracting side of things, but in yesteryear if you went with a higher bid on something you better have a damn good reason for doing so.
actually i read that the northrop/eads bid was not the cheapest. IMO boeing lost because:
1) poor performance on current efforts (yes 787, i’m talking to you)
2) using the 767 instead of a newer airframe to justify milking that old design a bit longer.
boeing says they would have used the 777 if they knew the customer wanted a bigger airframe, but they were the ones that argued that the smaller 767 was better for the air force. maybe the air force knows what is better for the air force?