Posted on 02/21/2018 4:30:38 PM PST by Enchante
Starting in late 2017, Boeing executives discussed plans to conceal employee bonuses or cancel them altogether in order to keep President Trump from getting credit, following the passage of the Republican tax-reform bill. On a series of conference calls led by Boeing’s Senior Vice President of Communications Phil Musser, Musser proposed and lobbied for canceling bonuses out of fear that the company may contribute to President Trump’s rising approval rating.
Before Musser worked as a high level Boeing’s communications staffer in Washington, his employment history included public and media relations work for Mitt Romney’s 2012 Presidential Campaign and The Freedom First PAC, a right leaning political action committee.
Since the passage and signing of Republican tax reform in December, hundreds of major companies have given their employees bonuses and raises with the some of the newly minted tax savings resulting from the new law. Boeing has enjoyed a relationship with the Trump Administration that’s been mostly cozy. The Administrations foreign policy changes have opened the door to billions of dollars of new purchases of Boeing products by America’s overseas partners, including Israel and Saudi Arabia.
According to Boeing employees familiar with the conversations inside Boeing that surrounded the decision to issue bonuses, Musser was not the only executive averse to publicizing the issuing of the bonuses. When it finally became clear to Musser and others that the bonuses would indeed be issued to employees, in mid to late January, Musser made a final push, calling for Boeing to “hold off” on handing out the Bonuses. Musser believed that delaying the issuing of bonuses to Boeing employees would ensure that the move was not seen as connected to Trump’s tax cuts.
In late January, Musser submitted a last-ditch proposal to his superiors at the company to draft documents retroactively that would give the appearance that Boeing had the bonus package planned well-before the passage of Trump’s signature tax-cut legislation, according to several employees familiar with the document. Musser shared this plan with several other Boeing executives and received a mixed response.The plan failed to gain support among the majority Boeing executives.
In the final press release announcing more than $600 Million in bonuses, drafted in part by Phil Musser, the bonuses were ultimately not attributed to President Trump’s economic policies or any change in public policy whatsoever. Instead Musser and his colleagues responsible for the drafting of the document pointed out in the short press release that the bonuses could pay for “Nearly 400 million Costco hotdog/soda combos” and “Over 283 million pounds of Washington apples”. Following the announcement of the new bonus package, Boeing’s stock has rallied despite overall market volatility.
After losing a several month long battle to conceal or stop the employee bonuses, Phil Musser ultimately received a bonus himself.
Phil Musser and Boeing did not respond to a request for comment from The Washington Reporter.
The black Santa Claus must have no competition!
Bttt.
5.56mm
I wonder how many other companies did this and didn’t get caught (yet).
...my!
Unbelievable (if true, and we do not know that for shurzies).
At one time, I owned stock in this formerly good company, and after that, I still always cheered Boeing on, v Airbus.
Then, IIRC, Boeing recently chose to sell jets (and parts and etc) to iran. (Do I have this right? Corrections invited.)
Now?
This?
Unbelievable.
And, sad.
.
How long will it take to wash these anti/Trump skanks out of the hierarchy? All hierarchies?
In fact, this past December Musser went on Fox news and praised the Trump tax reform as a “generation changing opportunity” according to the Washington Times article I just linked.
http://www.goodwp.com/images/201103/goodwp.com_16503.jpg
.
The new Air force One
Does the “Washington Reporter” ever provide a link to the press release where Musser supposedly snarked about Costco hotdogs?
Has anyone ever heard of the “Washington Reporter”?
How credible is this source?
Washington Reporter is run by Jacob Wohl, the former 19 year old Wall Street hedge fund wizard.
Until his fund collapsed. Now seems to want to be a journalist at his “news service”.
Uh huh. How do we know any of this is true? It could be fake news.
That might only mean he was saying what his boss(es) told him to say on tv. It doesn’t mean this article is wrong about his behavior behind-the-scenes.
But I agree that we don’t know (yet) if there is substantiation for this report. Right now it is just one article based upon anonymous sourcing.
Could be. Or it could be more reliable than most of what appears in the MSM.
But I agree, we don’t know more than that this one report based upon anonymous sourcing is saying something.
Still, that’s about as much as many MSM articles rely upon. We will have to see if more and better info emerges.
There is a special place in hell for these conniving screw worms.
Yup, it looks like basically one guy’s blog. We don’t know if he has any good sources or not. Of course, that is the position we are in with just about all of the MSM, too.
We have to compare reports and hope that more/better info emerges.
Okay, so at least there’s an actual press release. It’s clear the bit about the hotdogs was a humorous intro to the more substantive items like the thousands of hours of college that could be financed with the bonus money.
I’m skeptical of the unsourced talk of Musser plotting to deprive Trump of political upside but I guess maybe we’ll see.
Boeing’s Senior Vice President of Communications Phil Musser... proposed and lobbied for canceling bonuses out of fear that the company may contribute to President Trump’s rising approval rating. Before Musser worked as a high level Boeing’s communications staffer in Washington, his employment history included public and media relations work for Mitt Romney’s 2012 Presidential Campaign and The Freedom First PAC,
Used to be capitalists wanted to make money not cut their own throats.
MUSSER: Our first and most important top-line message from the Boeing company is to say, “Thank you,” to President Trump, Speaker Ryan, Leader McConnell, and members of Congress who passed this historic, once-in-a-generation tax reform bill that’s gonna allow us to make a lot more investments that will make us more competitive. That will allow us to compete globally, more effectively.
I’m confused.
Funnier than channelling Obama’s voice is channeling Rush Limbaugh channeling Obama’s voice. Cracks me up listening to Rush do Obama.
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