Heres a conundrum from you right wing conservatives and an additional fly in the McCain pickle jar. Senator McCain was instrumental in having the Pentagon contract to replace the nation’s aging fleet of air re-fueling KC-135 tankers pulled from a budget appropriation in 2001 opening it to the ensuing Boeing, Pentagon scandal and competitive bids. Friday the Pentagon awarded the contract to the French controlled consortium EADS, parent of Airbus. A spokesperson for Boeing stated this would result in the closing of the Boeing 767 production and a loss of more than 9000 American jobs. The good news is the French government will be able to replenish funds it used to subsidize Airbus. More good news, if you can call it such, EADS announced it would build an assembly facility,(to assemble the foreign made components), in Alabama, resulting in 1,000 American jobs. What a tradeoff, 9,000 lost manufacturing jobs to create 1,000. Also what if the French government endures one of it’s labor strikes, of which many have happened in the past. The entire fleet of American air refueling tankers could be affected, not to mention the possibility of the French government becoming unfriendly to the U.S. for some reason. They will have control of our entire refueling capability. Just think about a labor strike at just one of the facilities manufacturing parts critical to the continued operations of America’s fleet. Thanks, John McCain, I for one don’t think this is such a good idea.
