Brian McAndrews
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DECEMBER 20, 2001
10:20 AM
Ralph Nader or Robert Weissman, 202-387-8034, both of Essential Information
Right-Left Coalition Denounces Boeing
Corporate Welfare Deal WASHINGTON - December 20 - A broad
range of citizen organizations and leaders, spanning the political
spectrum, has joined together to express outrage over a provision in the
Defense Appropriations bill that would have the Air Force lease Boeing
767s at a price dramatically higher than the cost of direct purchase.
In a letter to senators, the groups urged senators "to take to the
floor to speak and vote against this specific siphoning of taxpayer money
to the Boeing company." Signers of the letter included Ralph Nader, Grover Norquist, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, the Congressional Accountability Project, the National Taxpayers Union, the Project on Government Oversight, Public Citizen and Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Under the Boeing lease provision, the Air Force will lease 100 Boeing 767s for use as tankers, at a pricetag of $20 million per plane per year, over a 10-year period. This $20 billion expenditure is far higher than the cost of direct purchase. The government will accrue extra expenses because it will be obligated not only to convert the commercial aircraft to military configurations; when the 10-year lease is over, it will be required to convert them back to commercial format, at an estimated cost of $30 million apiece. The cost of the lease plan may be as much as five times higher than an outright purchase would be. A last-minute amendment would also have the Air Force lease four 737s to shuttle Defense Department officials and potentially congressional leaders.
"There is no conceivable rationale for such a waste of taxpayer resources," the groups said in their letter. "If some in Congress believe Boeing needs to be subsidized, then they should propose direct subsidies to the company, and let Congress fully debate and vote on the issue before the American people, following comprehensive public hearings on the proposal.
"This is not a partisan issue. It is a basic test of whether Congress views itself as fundamentally accountable to the public interest, both procedurally and substantively.
"There will obviously be a Defense Appropriations bill passed for the coming fiscal year. But it must not be one that includes such a gross exhibition of corporate welfare. We urge you to speak and vote against the bill; and to force consideration of a revised bill, stripped of this grotesquery."
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