In Challenging Economy Protect American Aerospace Jobs
By State Rep. Tan Parker
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas Aerospace aviation is a high speed highly competitive field thats important to Texas. Our Air Force pilots deserve the best most tested & reliable aircraft in the world. Despite these facts Airbus is pressuring the Pentagon & the Obama Administration to ignore its illegal subsidies and allow them to use illegal aid in the tanker competition. But America shouldnt compromise its values or workers to accommodate a defense contractor particularly one with a history of anti-American trade violations.
You will likely remember me commenting on this topic previously. That is because we are in a jobs race against a French-based company funded with $178 billion of European Union-provided subsidies.
Airbus to date has taken tens of thousands of American jobs
according to our U.S. Trade Representative. Today they are preparing to take 50000 more jobs and a prestigious $35 billion U.S. defense contract with the help of $5 billion in subsidies that the World Trade Organization just ruled to be illegal.
The Pentagon is currently searching for a company to build a new fleet of airborne refueling tankers for the Air Force. The current tankers first hit the skies when President Eisenhower sat in the Oval Office and it is now time to replace them with a new more advanced fleet.
Americas Boeing Corporation is going head-to-head for that contract with Frances Airbus. But this is not
shaping up to be a fair fight.
Airbus aircraft was built with $5 billion of illegal subsidies according to a
recent landmark ruling from the World Trade Organization.
The illegal subsidies might allow Airbus to underbid Boeing and win the tanker contract building it primarily in Europe and costing America more than 50000 jobs including 2500 here in Texas at companies like Vought Aircraft Industries in Grand Prairie.
Equally as troubling are the implications for Americas security and our pilots safety.
Boeing has seven decades of experience building tanker aircraft. The new tanker will be based on a proven Boeing model that tanker crews call the gold standard for this technology.
If the Airbus design does not satisfy the Air Forces requirements it would waste billions in taxpayer dollars and outsource American jobs at a time of high unemployment. In effect we would be subsidizing jobs in France Spain and Germany with 35 billion of tax dollars paid for by Texans and other Americans.
I believe in fair open competition in all endeavors and simply want to make sure this critical procurement decision is one in which all competitors are assessed on
an even playing field.
Texas remains the beacon of economic hope in this country and our state is working hard to be the first to fully recover from this economic downturn. I believe that free markets our talented entrepreneurs and our good business regulatory environment will win out and that Texas will emerge from this recession stronger than when we entered it.
But the task will be tougher if foreign competitors are allowed to inappropriately subsidize key industries and cost Americans tens of thousands of jobs without as much as a peep from the Obama Administration.
At a minimum the administration should direct the Defense Department to conduct a subsidy-free tanker competition. Airbus is welcome to contend for the contract but they must either divest their aircraft of the illegal subsidies or the Pentagon should discount their value when weighing the bids.
To do any less would harm our economy and our American workers.
As always it is an honor to serve you in the Texas House of Representatives. Please feel free to contact me at my district office at 972-724-8477 or by e-mail at
tan.parker@house.state.tx.us
(This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if I can ever be of service.)
