Contact: Josh Holly-202.226.3988
Hunter: Air Force Decision Costs U.S. More Than 100,000 Thousand Jobs
Washington D.C. – U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), the Ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, today released the following statement regarding the Air Force’s decision to award the KC-45A tanker contract to Northop Grumman-European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS):
“This is a blow and a disservice to the American defense industrial base so vital to our national security interests. This U.S. taxpayer-funded contract was conceded to a socialistic system utilizing a heavily subsidized bid that valued an undercut price ahead of thousands of American workers already struggling to pay their mortgages and send their children to college.
“The hardworking aerospace men and women, and U.S. taxpayers, are the losers in this decision that benefited the treasuries of European governments.
“These are the same European governments who are unwilling to support us in the Global War on Terror and over the last few months refused to provide even an additional one hundred soldiers apiece for Afghanistan operations. Instead, we have to send 3,200 additional U.S. Marines to Afghanistan while they take $35 billion in American taxpayer contracts. Two-thirds of the foreign countries involved in this deal also fail to spend the minimum of two percent of GDP on defense as required by NATO membership.
“Airbus will tell you that they are creating new jobs in Alabama for final assembly. However, they fail to honestly tell the American people that the vast majority of the jobs required to build these aircraft are actually contained in the thousands of subassemblies that are built overseas.”
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