Porkers Squeal for Boeing
Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports on our April Porkers of the Month. Reps. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) and Todd Tiahrt (R-Kans.) respond:
Dicks, Tiahrt ‘Porkers of the Month’ over tanker
George Behan, a spokesman for Dicks, discounted the criticism, saying Dicks believes that the Air Force decision in favor of the Airbus tanker was “flawed.”
Citing the Boeing tanker’s smaller size relative to the winning tanker based on the Airbus A330, Behan asserted that the Boeing tanker bid should have won because it would be more cost-effective over the life of the tanker because, he said, it would produce “savings of $15 billion to $20 billion in fuel alone.”
Tiahrt responded to the pork-barrel criticism by arguing that the award of the tanker was “part of an alarming trend” within the Department of Defense to award major contracts to foreign suppliers from allied countries.
“We have a responsibility to do this,” Tiahrt said of trying to overturn the deal. “We have a responsibility to maintain a national industrial base.”
Unlike these representatives who have Boeing plants in their states, the GAO is an independent observer. If GAO decides that the procurement process was not “flawed” and that the deal is indeed the best one for taxpayers and the Air Force, the contract should be allowed to go forward without Congressional obstruction.
Filed under: Defense, In The News, Media Hits, Pork, Porker
I disagree with your complaints about the aerial tanker contract. Our balance of payments is already in dire shape, so why send billions to Europe. Also, the European countries subsidize the Airbus company, so the bidding process is flawed. I would urge you to look into this more thoroughly before you condemn an attempt to keep money and jobs and military intelligence at home.
Joe in Colorado