The Boxing Match to End C-17 Production—Round 1—The Fight Begins—Again
Dolores Barr, Editor and Publisher , OC180NEWS.com
Published 02/15/2010
The Obama Administration, the Challengers, recently unveiled their proposed defense budget for the next fiscal year, which begins on October 1, 2010. Just like last year, once again they want to end production of the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III advanced airlifters, and once again, most elected officials that are speaking up, the Defenders, give the idea a strong right jab. Hanging in the balance are the jobs of about 5,000 Boeing Long Beach employees [about 1,000 in St Louis] who assemble the big four engine cargo planes.
It was not surprising that the budget proposal called for an end to production of C-17s, but the President’s words were more aggressive than in the past. Last year, the Administration went to the mat for a handful of other high profile defense programs they wanted to dump, and for those programs where they chose to make their stand, they won. But, even though they initially said they wanted to end C-17 production, after the first bell, they took a hands off approach to the idea. This year, however, President Obama highlighted termination of C-17 production in his budget first bell speech.
The President said “We save money by eliminating unnecessary defense programs that do nothing to keep us safe. One example is the $2.5 billion that we're spending to build C-17 transport aircraft. Four years ago, the Defense Department decided to cease production because it had acquired the number requested -- 180. Yet every year since, Congress had provided unrequested money for more C-17s that the Pentagon doesn't want or need. It's waste, pure and simple.”
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So the Obama Challengers enter the ring swinging fast and hard. The Defenders, of course, were already throwing their punches. Our own Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher was one of several legislators entering the ring on behalf of the C-17. The arguments put forward by Rohrabacher are representative of statements made by several Defenders. At www.OC180NEWS.com we do not want to run the risk of editing out context or anything else important, so here we present his statement in total from his web site:
“These attempts to defund the C-17 are not based on limited government expenditures but instead on a commitment to limit America’s role in the world. For anyone in the military to claim the C-17 isn’t needed is not recognizing its proven reliability and capability to meet the unique challenges air lift missions require particularly now at a time when our military operations continue to increase.”
Eliminating production of the C-17 could cost 25,000 jobs nationally, including thousands of jobs in Southern California.
The fallacy in these arguments, of course, is that they seem to suggest the U.S. Air Force is going to be left with no C-17s if more are not included in the new budget. The Air Force started indicating they had enough of the planes when there were only 180 planes in the fleet. With the additional planes the congress has ordered, by the end of the current fiscal year, there will be about 223 of the planes in the fleet. Thus even if no more planes are included in next year’s budget, it seems to be a bit of a stretch to suggest that limiting the C-17 fleet to 223 planes, substantially more than the Air force has requested, to be “neutering” the Air Force, or denying the “essential” role the C-17 plays, or suggesting the C-17 “isn’t needed”.
Another fallacy in the typical arguments in defense of continued C-17 production is to suggest that the government should continue buying more planes because they are terrific planes. At www.OC180NEWS.com we carefully track statements by top Administration officials regarding the C-17 and have yet to come across any comments which degrade the effectiveness and functionality of the C-17.
Nobody is challenging the C-17’s “proven reliability and capability to meet the unique challenges air lift missions require”. But, the fact that everybody agrees the C-17 is a great plane is unrelated to any justification for continually buying more of them.
Missouri Congressman Roy Blunt, Missouri Sens. Kit Bond and Claire McCaskill, and Sen. James Inhofe, Oklahoma, also were out with C-17 support statements. California Senator Barbara Boxer, who is up for reelection this year, came out with a generic statement in support of President Obama’s budget, but did not specifically identify a position on the C-17. Last year, she was supportive of continuing production.
Arizona Republican John McCain was supportive of the President’s proposal to end C-17 production. He also stressed that if the President is going to make his proposal stick, it will require some strong veto threatening directly from President Obama. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is of course on record as strongly favoring ending C-17 production. That was also his position last year, but the congress ordered 10 more planes anyway. The difference is, this year not only did Gates submit a defense budget which called for an end to C-17 production, he also has already called for a Presidential veto if the final budget includes more of the big planes. He did not do that last year.