Kerry, Tierney lost credibility by funding unneeded engine

[unhappycamper]

Kerry, Tierney lost credibility by funding unneeded engine
Globe Editorial
December 28, 2009

ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES would not stay in office for long if they did not push for job-creating federal contracts in their states. But they have a greater responsibility to draw a line when it comes to projects that are wasteful or unnecessary. Unfortunately, both Massachusetts senators and Representative John Tierney have worked to salvage a $465 million jet engine program that the Pentagon itself does not want.

In a speech earlier this year calling on Congress to stop funding superfluous defense programs, President Obama specifically cited the program to create an alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jet as a classic example of such waste. United Technologies’ Pratt & Whitney won the prime contract for the jet’s engines. Back in the late 1990s Congress decided to award a second contract to GE, which has a jet engine plant in Lynn, with the notion that at some point the Pentagon could hold competitions between the engines. By 2006, though, the Defense Department had decided the investment in the alternate engine did not make sense.

That should have ended the matter, with the taxpayer the winner. But Senator John Kerry succeeded in slipping an appropriation for the engine into the $626 billion military appropriations bill Obama signed last Monday. Kerry justified this by referring to the 1,000 Massachusetts jobs that GE says would be saved once the engine is in full production.

No doubt many people in Lynn and across the Commonwealth are grateful for Kerry’s advocacy. Few would fault him for saving jobs at holiday time. But all such savings come at a cost - and in this case the cost will be measured in lost confidence in the federal government and lost credibility to Massachusetts.

The ability to fund necessary investments in public transit, new renewable energy facilities, and medical research - and to target such programs toward Massachusetts - depends on the national public’s faith in the government’s ability to make responsible choices. It also depends on the credibility of Massachusetts’ senators and representatives in advocating for programs that are, in fact, needed.


Rest of article at: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2009/12/28/kerry_tierney_lost_credibility_by_funding_unneeded_engine/



unhappycamper comment: The $239 million dollar F-35 hasn't flown above 40,000 feet yet. And these sorry shits are still perpetuating the Joint Strike Fighter myth.

[POAS]

1. It would seem that

we have basically pushed the envelope about as far as we can in the fighter jet category given the limits of our current technology and the relative frailty of the human body and yet we still fight to keep these projects (which have been proven to be only equal to or worse than currently used aircraft) going.

[TexasObserver]

2. Recommend.

dammit, too late to recommend