I Am SCREAMING At My TV...Point OUt McCain Has Shipped Jobs Overseas
This morning while watching Stephanopoulos, I found myself again screaming at the TV, just as I did during the Debates. Why isn't anyone pointing out the fact that every time McCain proudly waves about his "taking on Boeing" and saving money, he is bragging THAT he has cost the U.S. Jobs!
The company that got the contract instead of the American company (Boeing) was the European plane maker, Airbus.... and it turns out that McCain's own Top Advisers had lobbied on behalf of Airbus for that very deal. We should be slamming him on this. It covers a couple of the major issues... loss of U.S. Jobs, outsourcing of our government to foreign companies, and the McCain's own lobbyist manipulated campaign.
This is the major problem with the Obama campaign, not taking major openings when they are even presented giftwrapped.
In this economy where people are afraid of losing their jobs, we should be explaining the idea of share responsibility. That paying a little more sometimes to keep Americans working should be a good thing. That sometimes spending money is good, which also means not all earmarks are bad... some earmarks are good... they can equal our jobs and our vital infrastructure. Ughhhhh!
JJ
Infinitus est
numerous stultorum. - Infinite is the number of foolish people.
MSNBC reported March 11, 2008:
McCain Advisers Lobbied for Airbus
Campaign says senator was 'never lobbied related to the issues'
WASHINGTON - Top current advisers to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign last year lobbied for a European plane maker that beat Boeing to a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract, taking sides in a bidding fight that McCain has tried to referee for more than five years.
Two of the advisers gave up their lobbying work when they joined McCain's campaign. A third, former Texas Rep. Tom Loeffler, lobbied for the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. while serving as McCain's national finance chairman.
EADS is the parent company of Airbus, which teamed up with U.S.-based Northrop Grumman Corp. to win the lucrative aerial refueling contract on Feb. 29. Boeing Co. Chairman and CEO Jim McNerney said in a statement Monday that the Chicago-based aerospace company "found serious flaws in the process that we believe warrant appeal."
'Aesthetics are not good,'
McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in waiting, has been a key figure in the Pentagon's yearslong attempt to complete a deal on the tanker. McCain helped block an earlier tanker contract with Boeing and prodded the Pentagon in 2006 to develop bidding procedures that did not exclude Airbus.
EADS retained Ogilvy Government Relations and The Loeffler Group to lobby for the tanker deal last year, months after McCain sent two letters urging the Defense Department to make sure the bidding proposals guaranteed competition.
"They never lobbied him related to the issues, and the letters went out before they were contracted" by EADS, McCain campaign spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said Monday.
According to lobbying records filed with the Senate, Loeffler Group lobbyists on the project included Loeffler and Susan Nelson, who left the firm and is now the campaign's finance director. Ogilvy lobbyist John Green, who was assigned the EADS work, recently took a leave of absence to volunteer for McCain as the campaign's congressional liaison.
"The aesthetics are not good, especially since he is an advocate of reform and transparency," said Richard Aboulafia, an analyst with the aerospace consulting firm Teal Group. "Boeing advocates are going to use this as ammunition."
A neutral watchdog
McCain, a longtime critic of influence peddling and special interest politics, has come under increased scrutiny as a presidential candidate, particularly because he has surrounded himself with advisers who are veteran Washington lobbyists. He has defended his inner circle and has emphatically denied reports last month in The New York Times and The Washington Post that suggested he helped the client of a lobbyist friend nine years ago.
He has also cast himself as a neutral watchdog in the Air Force tanker contract, one of the largest in decades.
"All I asked for in this situation was a fair competition," he told reporters Monday at Lambert Field in St. Louis, home of a Boeing fighter jet plant.
On Friday, he defended his aggressive oversight: "I never weighed in for or against anybody that competed for the contract. All I asked for was a fair process. And the facts are that I never showed any bias in any way against anybody — except for the taxpayer."
Last week, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the EADS-Northrop Gruman plane was "clearly a better performer" than the one proposed by Boeing.
It is unclear what EADS hired the lobbyists to do. Loeffler and Airbus officials did not immediately respond to phone and e-mail messages left late Monday.
McCain and Boeing
A Boeing spokesman declined to comment Monday on the links between McCain and lobbying efforts on behalf of EADS.
But Boeing supporters already have begun to accuse McCain of damaging Boeing's chances by inserting himself into the tanker deal.
One of them, Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., said the field was "tilted to Airbus" because the Pentagon did not weigh European subsidies for Airbus in its deliberations — a decision he blamed on McCain. Everett, Wash., is where Boeing would perform much of the tanker work, and Dicks is a senior member of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.
In December 2006, just weeks before the Air Force was set to release its formal request for proposals, McCain wrote a letter to the incoming defense secretary, Robert Gates, warning that he was "troubled" by the Air Force's draft request for bids.
The United States had filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization alleging that Airbus unfairly benefits from European subsidies. Airbus in turn argued that Boeing also receives government support, mostly as tax breaks.
A game-changer
Under the Air Force proposal, bidders would have been required to explain how financial penalties or other sanctions stemming from the subsidy dispute might affect their ability to execute the contract. The request was widely viewed as hurting the EADS-Northrop Grumman bid.
The proposed bid request "may risk eliminating competition before bids are submitted," McCain wrote in a Dec. 1, 2006, letter to Gates. The Air Force changed the criteria four days later.
Dicks said the removal of the subsidy language was a "game-changer" that favored EADS over Boeing.
"The only reason that they could even bid a low price is because they received a subsidy," Dicks said last week. "And Senator McCain jumped into this and said that (the Air Force) could not look at the subsidy issue — which I think is a big mistake, especially when the U.S. trade representative is bringing a case in the (World Trade Organization) on this very issue."
EADS' interest in the tanker deal is evident in the political contributions of its employees. From 2004 to 2006, donations by its employees jumped from $42,500 to $141,931, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. So far this election cycle, company employees have donated $120,350. Of that, McCain's presidential campaign has received $14,000, the most of any other member of Congress this election cycle.
'A full, fair and open competition'
McCain prides himself in the role he played blocking an earlier version of the tanker deal that gave the contract to Boeing. As chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and of an Armed Services subcommittee, McCain led an investigation that eventually helped kill that contract in 2004. A former Air Force official and a top Boeing executive both served time in prison, and the scandal led to the departure of Boeing's chief executive and several top Air Force officials.
"I intervened in a process that was clearly corrupt," McCain said Friday. "That's why people went to jail."