Posted on 07/06/2007 6:26:11 AM PDT by RDTF
For the second year in a row the Pentagon has insisted that it doesn't need another engine for its next-generation fighter jet. And again, Senator Edward M. Kennedy and other powerful lawmakers are forcing it to build one anyway.
Tucked in the annual defense bill moving through Congress is $480 million to develop a spare engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter even though the Air Force concluded in 2005 that it was redundant -- and two independent review boards agreed.
That didn't trump pork-barrel politics.
General Electric Aircraft Engines in Lynn is designing the spare engine and says the project will bring jobs to the Bay State. That led Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat and member of the Armed Services Committee, to keep the project alive.
Last month, Kennedy personally "earmarked" $100 million for the engine -- more than 20 percent of its cost -- during committee deliberations over the 2008 defense authorization bill. Other lawmakers whose home states could also benefit inserted the rest of the funding.
Kennedy, a 44-year Senate veteran, has a long history of steering federal dollars to Massachusetts. Some of the earmarks have come under scrutiny, including money for infrastructure projects in Hyannis Port, where the Kennedy family has a summer home, and the problem-plagued, billion-dollar Big Dig tunnel project .
But the engine earmark is especially striking since Kennedy has advocated for controlling defense spending. Delivering $480 million for an engine that may never fly is far more than any of Kennedy's previous defense-related earmarks and is among his most expensive, records show.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
bad link - can you please substitute this one? thank you
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/07/06/kennedy_pushes_100m_item_for_mass/
How about $100 million for extracting Ted’s blubber oil, thus solving the energy crisis?
(Thinking globally, acting locally)
Someone ought to re-earmark that $100M for veterans hospitals........
Is it declassified and sold or given away to other nations?
Just thought I'd ask.
Sadly, that is soooo true......
We’d be set for at least 40 years.
Your idea is the best yet. Vets don’t get enough for what they’ve sacrificed. There shouldn’t be any foreign aid or welfare until vets are taken care of. But further talk about being a fat pig and bringing home the pork that mess in Boston called the “Big Dig” is a Kennedy piece of pork. I think now it’s run into the billions and it’s still a mess but does the MSM talk about it, nooooo.
MA needs to start another Big Dig.
Have they stopped the contract for the sail lines for the clipper ships yet? That contract was still running after WW11.
bookmark
“Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin...”
bump
What happens is that the Defense Contractor, after celebrating all those new jobs created thanks to the US Government, ends up laying off all those people it hired because no one actually buys it.
Didn’t GE just sell its plastics division to a Saudi Arabian group for a couple of bill?
Is the Swimmer worried about getting re-elected? But he’s a Kennedy, its automatic!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.