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Category: Colorado
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Published on Saturday, 01 March 2008 02:19
As you know, our government recently passed a $160 billion economic stimulus plan, which effectively is creating money out of thin air to try to get people to spend more and help the economy. This plan received much criticism, but they obviously felt the need to put on appearances of trying to do something to help the economy. The hope is that a one-time cash infusion might somehow help things, when what would really help long term is building our economy and creating jobs. So, when the time came recently to award a $40B contract to build new in-air refueling tankers for the Air Force (a contract which may grow to $100B), one would think they'd look at this as a chance to create jobs for Americans. Nope. The contract was awarded to a partnership between US-based Northrop Grumman and the
European company that makes the popular Airbus series of passenger jets. Final assembly will be done in the US so it's not like all of the money is being shipped overseas, but the bottom line is that we'll be spending many billions of dollars to create jobs overseas instead of in the US. The competitor for this contract was US-based Boeing, and Boeing very nearly got the contract until, according to the New York Times, Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain scuttled that plan and opened the door for European competition. You can read more about this in the
New York Times article.
