Government Contracts + Protectionism = Corruption
by Vince Daliessio
Imagine, Republican senators opposing a defense contract! You know there's something fishy...
Congress Approves Measure to Ban Program Reconfiguring Jets as Refueling Planes
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Congress yesterday barred the Air Force from pursuing a $23 billion deal to lease and then buy tankers from Boeing Co. and raised the possibility that European rival Airbus SAS could compete to build the refueling planes.
The action ends a three-year-old defense program that spurred a federal investigation, the resignation of Boeing's chief executive and a nine-month prison sentence for a former Air Force official who admitted inflating the contract's price to help her job prospects at Boeing.
"Any program to acquire tankers must start from the beginning . . . on a traditional budget, procurement, and authorization track," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the chief critic of the lease-buy strategy, said in an exchange on the Senate floor with Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Warner said he agreed.
But House members, including Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, disagreed.
"The most important point is we don't have to go back and have another procurement, because if we did that it would take years and years before we would start getting the tankers," said Rep. Norman D. Dicks (D-Wash.), whose district includes thousands of Boeing workers. "And I believe it's the position of the Congress that this is going to be built by an American company."
Abe Lincoln, Alexander Hamilton, and Henry Clay would be proud of you, Representative Dicks!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21044-2004Oct9.html