Washington, DC - Yet another round of political game playing may delay the awarding of $35 billion contract to replace our current out dated aerial refueling tanker. The program, already mired in scandal and controversy, to build new tankers to support our armed forces, may hit another roadblock as French based Airbus threatens the Pentagon by withdrawing its bid.
Recently the World Trade Organization found that Airbus has been receiving billions of dollars in illegal subsidies from European countries in an attempt to under bid American airplane manufactures and bring high priced contracts and jobs to the European nations. This revelation caused President Barack Obama and Members of Congress from both parties to ask that the illegal subsidies be a factor in awarding the contract.
"This contract would mean tens of thousands of high paying, high tech jobs at a time when the US is losing manufacturing jobs," said Kerri Toloczko, Vice President of the Institute for Liberty. "These jobs paid for with US tax dollars must go to American workers as soon as possible. It is outrageous that a European company is arm twisting and delaying the US military"
The current Request for Proposal (RFP) does not take the international scandal into account, but does contain thousands of criteria based on the tankers size, ability to utilize existing airbases and maneuverability of the planes. Factors that conform to Air Force requests, but not Airbus' offering. As a result they are threatening not to complete their application and running afoul of a Congressional rule requiring multiple bids on large contracts.
In 2007 the General Accounting Office overturned an Airbus contract on the grounds the RFP was rewritten to favor Airbus despite the needs of the US military and the altered criteria was kept secret from their competitor Boeing.
"Our Armed Services are in dire need of new planes, American workers are in desperate need of the tens of thousands of jobs that would be award to a domestic manufacturer and our economy could use the influx of billions of dollars," continued Toloczko, "Yet for some reason we are cow-towing to a foreign company caught red-handed using illegal subsidies to take our money and jobs overseas."
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