“60% is still being built in America and will probably employee as many people as Boeing would have.”
That’s a blatant falsehood. Not even Northrop Grumman claims that. The only American made components of this plane will be the GE engines. The NG factory in Alabama will be nothing but a final assembly point. All of the other parts will be fabricated in Europe and shipped here. As for building parts here, we have nothing but a nebulous promise from NG and Airbus that they “might” shift some of the production here at some point in the process. Nothing has been committed to.
“Comparatively, Boeing’s 776 tanker is 85 percent built in the United States.
“The direct impact of the Air Force’s decision is not an increase of 27,000 new jobs, as Northrop Grumman-EADS claims, but a loss of 12,570 American jobs.***
http://republicans.armedservices.house.gov/News/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=427
Boeing was not going to hire “new” employees because the union contract won't allow them until they use existing workers from their canceled contracts. Northrup would have to hire workers for the brand new project which would probably be equal to the “new” workers Boeing would have had to bring in. Of the 12,570 jobs lost, mostly Boeing's workers, many of them could move to Alabama and try to get jobs there. Boeing can't keep ripping the Government off then expect to keep getting rewarded for it.